Oregon softball suffered its first defeat of the season when it narrowly lost to Louisville, 4-3, in the first game of a doubleheader.
For the first time this season, Oregon was not the first team to strike first on the scoreboard, as Louisville’s Celene Funk blasted a two-run shot straight down the right field-line to give the Cardinals an early 2-0 lead in the top of the third.
Ariel Carlson finally put the Ducks on the board in the fourth with an RBI double to left-center to bring Allee Bunker home and the Ducks within a single run.
The bottom of the fifth gave Oregon its biggest surge of the day when Terra McGowan hit one in the right-center gap for a two-out RBI double to score in Haley Cruse and tie things up at two apiece.
In the same inning, Rachel Cid gave the Ducks their first lead of the game, 3-2, with an RBI single to bring in Mcgowan
At the top of the seventh, Louisville scored two runs to take back the lead after Maddy Newman’s eventual game-winning run with a single to right center.
The Ducks looked to bounce back in the back end of Saturday’s doubleheader, but came up short once again, 5-4.
Game 2 was another tough game for the Ducks as they faced No. 15 Oklahoma State, and they fought until the very end.
Oregon was the first to strike to start the game when Deijah Pangilinan laid down a bunt to bring Bunker home on the play after an error.
In the bottom of the fifth, however, Oklahoma State took its first lead of the game with a two-run homer.
The Ducks immediately responded with another single from Pangilinan to tie things up at two apiece.
Brooke Yanez stepped up in the circle at the bottom of the seventh to strand a pair of runners and register back-to-back strikeouts to send the game into extras.
In the top of the eighth, Vallery Wong put the Ducks in front with a walk with the bases loaded, despite Oklahoma tying it up at three apiece to send the game into an international tiebreaker rule.
A back-and-forth ninth inning was a battle for the Ducks, when they added one more run from McGowan’s sacrifice fly, but Yanez couldn’t finish it on the mound and Oregon dropped a tough one, 5-4.
The Ducks will have a quick turnaround on Sunday as they face Illinois-Chicago at 8:30 a.m. for their last game in the OSU/Tulsa Invitational.
Follow Carly on Twitter @carlyebisuya.
