It’s time for the No. 17 Oregon softball team to continue some unfinished business .
The Ducks (33-20 overall, 5-8 Pacific-10 Conference) travel to No. 12 Oregon State to make up a previously rained-out double header originally scheduled for April 22.
“It’s Civil War time,” head coach Rick Gamez said. “I don’t think much needs to be said about this. The kids always get up for these games.”
Oregon is looking to rebound from its current two-game losing streak and to exact revenge for a previous 2-0 loss to the Beavers (34-14, 4-8). And while both of those factors will add to the fire of the Civil War, it isn’t as if anything was needed to spice up the rivalry.
“You always want to go out and beat Oregon State,” sophomore pitcher Connie McMurren (14-14) said. “We needed those two games [against Arizona] to put us in better standing in the Pac-10, but we’re going to go out and get them like we were before.”
The Beavers are also coming into the game with a bad taste in their mouths, having dropped the final game of their home stand to No. 4 Arizona State, 6-0. That loss dropped Oregon State half a game behind the Ducks in the conference standings.
“They are in a situation where they need to get a couple of wins, like we are,” Gamez said. “So they are going to do whatever they need to get some.”
Despite the two losses, the Ducks sit in fifth-place in the midst of the standings. And McMurren, for one, knows how important a strong second is to her team.
“We could easily have come away 3-0 [last weekend], so that makes it a little hard to swallow when you come away 1-2,” McMurren said. “But I think we’re doing a good job and we’re coming on strong late in the season and that’s important.”

The first time these two teams met in April, Tarrah Beyster got the better of McMurren, 2-0. Both hurlers threw great games, but an error cost the Ducks the victory.
“Last time they played us here, Connie gave them a run on a couple walks and an error,” Gamez said. “That hurts us, but we still need to come out and swing the bats better.”
Oregon is in the middle of a collective slump that has only produced eight hits and one run in the last three games. However, Gamez is not overly concerned with the lack of production, since the Ducks faced three of the top pitchers in the conference by facing Kirsten Voak, Jennie Finch and Becky Lemke.
“We were being a lot more patient later in the ball game [against Arizona],” Gamez said. “But when we have runners in scoring position we have to make sure to make good solid contact.”
Despite having faced some of the best pitchers in the nation, the Ducks still need to be more disciplined at the plate and not swing at pitches out of the zone because the pitchers in the Pac-10 know how to capitalize on mistakes, Gamez said.
“We’re swinging at pitches that are out of the zone and pitches that we’re taking are in the zone,” he said. “We’ve got to be more aggressive early in the count so we don’t chase the pitches later in the count.”
And there is no better way to work out of a slump than in live game action, Gamez said. The best thing the Ducks can do is forget about the past and concentrate on the games ahead of them. Oregon will host California and Stanford this weekend.
“Now it just becomes a matter of do we practice or do we play,” Gamez said. “We’re just playing another game, [and] we would have been practicing anyway.”
Both McMurren and freshman Andrea Vidlund (16-4) continue to throw well for the Ducks. McMurren picked up both a win and a loss during the weekend, while Vidlund got a loss despite throwing seven innings of three-hit ball against No. 2 Arizona.