Oregon came into the Pac-12 Championships looking to punctuate their regular season performance. Instead, the Ducks will leave Ojai, California, after an early exit.
On Thursday afternoon, the No. 4-seeded Ducks fell to No. 5 Stanford 4-2 in the quarterfinals after earning a first-round bye.
Similar to their match on April 16 — a 4-3 Oregon win — Stanford got out to the early lead by winning the doubles point.
Akihiro Tanaka and Simon Stevens fell to Stanford’s David Wilczynski and Brandon Sutter, 7-5. After Jayson Amos and Armando Soemarno were able to pull out a 6-4 win, it came down to Oregon’s No. 1 doubles pair of Thomas Laurent and Cormac Clissold. However, the pair lost 7-5 match to clinch the point for Stanford.
Playing in the No. 6 spot, Ty Gentry lost in straight sets to William Genensen 6-3, 6-2 to put Oregon behind 2-0.
Yet, the Ducks had hope after Jayson Amos and Simon Stevens each pulled off straight set victories of their own to even the match, 2-2. The momentum, however, was quickly halted after Clissold lost in three sets to Brandon Sutter, 6-3, 1-6, 7-5.
Laurent had the best of Tom Fawcett in Eugene, winning 6-4, 6-0. But Fawcett exacted revenge on Thursday, topping Laurent 7-6, 6-4 to clinch the match for Stanford and send the Ducks home empty-handed.
With a strong regular season, the Ducks are all but guaranteed a spot in the NCAA Tournament, which begins May 12.
Follow Cole Kundich on Twitter @ckundich