There’s no dancing around the fact the Oregon baseball team is two wins away from a trip to the College World Series.
“As much as you say it doesn’t really affect you, I think it does,” freshman pitcher Jake Reed@@checked@@ said. “How close we are, it’s just really exciting. We really want to get this for our team and for our community.”
With such high stakes, head coach George Horton said he’ll be reminding his players to think back to their childhoods.
“That gives you a chance to fulfill that childhood dream where you’re playing whiffleball with your brothers and it’s always 3-2, bases loaded, two outs in the bottom of the ninth,” Horton said. “I’m hoping that my team takes a whiffle-ball approach. You don’t ever think about failure there.”
The Ducks (45-17) welcome Kent State (44-17) to the confines of PK Park@@’friendly confines’? sound contradictory with the ducks hosting their opponent, with the crowd probably not being friendly to them. what do you think, frank, tyree?@@ this weekend for a best-of-three series for the chance to advance to the College World Series. The Golden Flashes are riding a 20-game winning streak dating back to April 25. Kent State qualified for the Super Regional by winning in Gary, Ind. — beating Kentucky twice and host Purdue once. While they were the third seed in the Regional, but the Ducks say June is no time to take an opponent lightly.
“We know they have some power, and some guys that can really swing the bat,” Reed said. “We also know that whoever we play for the rest of the year, or the rest of the season, is going to have those guys 1-9 that can really swing the bat … It doesn’t matter what seed they are, they beat Kentucky twice.”
Rather than focusing on their opponents, however, the Ducks are sticking to their mentality of playing a faceless opponent.
“We don’t play our opponents,” Horton said. “We play the game of baseball.”@@right@@
He said the team’s preparation has been about an 80-20 split with the majority of the effort focusing on themselves, rather than making specific preparations for Kent State’s lineup.@@between what and what@@ The team has been working on breathing exercises and working with sports psychologists in advance of the critical games. It sounds simple, Horton says, but it’s important to have those tools to go to.
“It’s very unrealistic for me as the coach to say, ‘Hey guys, let’s just pretend like this is another game,’” he said.
Oregon does have the distinct advantage of playing at home, which makes a huge difference in postseason play. Well, more than 3,000 fans attended each of the three Oregon victories last weekend, with more than 3,700 fans taking in the team’s Friday night win over Austin Peay.
“It’s been pretty special, especially that Austin Peay game,” said Alex Keudell. “The crowd willed us to that victory; it was awesome hearing the chants and the ‘Go Ducks’ and the ‘O’ — all the energy from the crowd. It was awesome.”
It’s that kind of environment the Ducks live for. Horton said the team has been practicing with artificial crowd noise all season to perfect their nonverbal communication.
“Right from the very first day, our system has been designed to play in these@@these?@@ kinds of environments,” he said.
Game one of the Eugene Super Regional is Saturday at 8 p.m., with game two scheduled for Sunday at 7 p.m. In the event that a third game is necessary to determine a winner, it will be at 4 p.m. on Monday.