In case you’ve failed to notice – through the excitement of a historic basketball season, the start of spring football and another track season, and/or with baseball season beginning – the Oregon softball team is starting to turn heads with its best start in school history at 37-5.
A team that was projected to finish last in the Pacific-10, a conference that had every team except Oregon ranked in the preseason top 15, the Ducks have leapfrogged all but two of them now and are ranked 10th in the nation.
As the Ducks entered the Pac-10 portion of its schedule, questions lingered as to whether Oregon, which lightened its non-conference schedule this season, would suffer a similar fate as last season when the team won just five of 16 conference games.
The Ducks emerged with a 3-2 record after last weekend – they were 19-13 overall and 2-3 after five conference games last year – following splits with Oregon State and Stanford and a win against California, all at home.
The question now becomes what happens to the Ducks from here on out?
This is what we know so far: There were shaky wins and questions of whether or not this team could close out games (the Ducks blew three leads in the seventh inning, winning in two of those), as well as a lopsided 15-4 loss to No. 11 Stanford, but the Ducks also added a solid 8-0 win against the Cardinal.
But what truly makes this Oregon team different this year?
Resiliency.
You could argue that it’s Oregon’s new-and-improved hitting approach that has led to some eye-popping statistics, led by outstanding redshirt freshman Jenn Salling – and you’d be correct. Twenty-seven times this season, the Ducks have posted at least six runs and entered last weekend either first or second in the conference in seven different categories.
Or, you could make a case for Oregon’s pitching staff, which entered last week leading the conference with a 1.16 ERA. And how about a defense that came in against Oregon State atop the conference leaderboard in fielding percentage, assists, and double plays?
That’s all nice, but disregard those numbers because what truly makes this team special can’t be measured in a stat column.
Take pitcher Melissa Rice, for example. The sophomore was shelled against Stanford, giving up five total home runs, two of them grand slams, 16 hits and 15 runs in what she called the worst outing of her career. The tears she shed following the game certainly reaffirmed that.
She then committed two costly errors in the seventh inning on routine plays that led to Oregon State’s comeback victory and addressed the media following the game by saying she felt she let her team down for a second straight time.
But she responded with one of her most dominant performances Saturday against the Beavers, taking a perfect game into the seventh inning.
“I’m very, very proud of her,” Oregon coach Kathy Arendsen said. “She’s a class act. She’s a tough competitor. She grew a lot between last night and today. It’s tough to step up after a disappointment and she did.”
And so did the Ducks. After needing just one out to win the game for the second straight day, Oregon blew the lead. But there was no panic Saturday and no thoughts of “here we go again” after the Beavers had won eight straight in the series, six by one run.
That type of resilience should serve them well.
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