After striking out Oregon’s Ariel Carlson in the second inning, Portland State pitcher Olivia Grey offered a parting wave and a smirk as Carlson made her way back to the dugout. Little did Grey know that she had sparked a rebound for a Ducks team that was in desperate need of a win.

The following inning, No. 19 Oregon (26-13) broke the tie, using three hits and a Viking error to jump ahead 2-0. The Ducks never relented the lead en route to a 5-2 victory over No. 101 Portland State (24-15) on Tuesday night.

Rachel Cid tacked on a solo shot in the bottom of the fourth that nearly cleared the netting in left field. The Vikings committed a slew of errors and Oregon applied pressure offensively to put the struggling Ducks back in the win column.

“Something we’ve been working on is rise balls,” Cid said. “My first at bat I was late and jammed on one and I wasn’t going to let that happen again.”

Portland State relented a miniature track meet on the basepaths, allowing five Oregon stolen bases including Kai Luschar’s swipe of home in the fifth inning to extend the Ducks’ lead to four. Luschar’s run came after reaching base and ending up at third on a ball that hardly left the infield. Taking advantage of two errors on the same play, Lushar never stopped running and put herself in prime scoring position.

“We’ve worked really hard on our running game,” Oregon coach Melyssa Lombardi said. “We try to be extremely aggressive on the basepaths. Tonight we had some good opportunities to take and we took them.”

Suddenly, Grey wasn’t focused on celebrating strikeouts. Her new focus became keeping Portland State in the game. She was unable to do so as Oregon snapped the Vikings’ five game winning streak. After striking out Carlson again in the sixth, a much humbler Grey simply retrieved the ball and got back on the mound. Grey finished the night allowing five runs on four hits and four walks across six innings of work.

Defensively, freshman Stevie Hansen shut down Portland State to pick up her 10th win of the season. Hansen allowed just two Viking baserunners across six shutout innings while tallying a season high 12 strikeouts. After surrendering only a triple in the second and a single in the third, Hansen retired the final 10 batters she faced and struck out the last five.

Makenna Kliethermes entered in the top of the seventh for the Ducks and after allowing two runs, thanks in large part to a Natalia Martinez home run, she settled down to close out the win for Oregon in its last non-conference game of the season.

“I didn’t even know that I had twelve strikeouts,” Hansen said. “I take it one hitter at a time, one game at a time.”

The Oregon win comes on the back of a cold streak in Pac-12 play that the Ducks are eager to put behind them. They’ll have a chance to do so this weekend as No. 17 Washington (25-11) rolls into Eugene for a three game series.

“We are ready,” Lombardi said. “We will be ready. We just have to continue to finish strong.”