The Oregon club baseball team needed a three-game sweep of visiting Seattle University this past weekend in order to qualify for regionals. The squad won the first game of a doubleheader at Hamlin Middle School on Saturday morning, when Andres Borromeo hit a walk-off home run to snag the 4-3 victory for the Ducks.@@http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/aborromeo1?sk=wall@@
Oregon’s postseason hopes were quickly dashed, however, when the team lost 2-1 in the second game.
“Once we knew our season was done we had a little fun in the third game,” club coordinator Travis Knapp said. “We played guys who weren’t supposed to be throwing, we played an ineligible coach, which was all pretty funny because we still almost won.”@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=travis+knapp@@
Sunday’s rubber match was “fun” as the two teams exploded for a combined 25 runs, with Seattle coming out one score ahead of Oregon, 13-12.
Oregon closed the Northwest Pacific Region season with a record of 6-11.
“We expected a lot out of this season,” Knapp said. “We had a fair amount of returners coming back with a lot of starting experience, we had a lot of talented newcomers, a good new class of guys, but we just didn’t hit our expectations.”
The club is comprised of baseball players with a smattering of backgrounds in the game. Almost all of them played in high school, and according to Knapp, the best players are ones who were cut from the actual school team or were stars at their high schools but didn’t want to sacrifice attending a larger university to play lower division college ball.
“We have a ton of fun playing the game, and we really are good at it,” Knapp said. “It is interesting to come see a talented team who sometimes doesn’t play up to their obvious potential.”
The team may have finished with a losing record, but it is still on its way up according to Knapp.
In 2008, the club had its indoor batting and pitching facility privileges taken away by the school for what Knapp called, “not being smart about how we treated the facilities.”
The team apparently was also not seen in a positive light by other regional opponents — Western Washington, Seattle and Eastern Washington Universities — along with Central Oregon Community College.
“We have rebuilt since ’08,” Knapp said. “We were one of the most hated teams in our league, and now we are winning respect back. We aren’t messing around anymore; we just want to play baseball.
“We are becoming a lot more organized, we know what we are capable of with the talent we have, we can bring in a new coach who could focus us in and organize us, and we are headed in the direction of going back to our glory days of heading to the club world series again and again.”
The team is hoping, along with regaining respect, to acquire some better playing accommodations. Oregon used to play at Civic Stadium before it closed and South Eugene High School, but it had a falling out with the school, which placed the squad at its current location: Hamlin Middle School in Springfield.
But that field — besides being distant from the University — also has very poor drainage, which proves to be a major hassle, as re-scheduling with teams from all across the northwest is difficult.
Knapp hopes that with this more serious and responsible approach by the club, the team may be able to earn back its indoor practice facility and possibly find a better playing venue.
Knapp, who will give up his club coordinator role next year to take on the responsibility of vice president of finance for the executive committee for club sports, thinks that focus and organization will be the key to success for the team next season.
“I will be on the club sports board and that could help from the administrative side,” Knapp said. “And we will have a new coach, probably a student, which can help us get on track.
“Next year we can potentially return almost every player, and with the talent we have, the pain from not going to regionals for the first time in seven or eight years, we will be ready. We are looking to turn heads and play better.”
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