Oregon achieved a lot of firsts — ironically, in its last regular season meet. The No. 4 Ducks’ (3-3) 270.420-266.370 victory over the No. 6 Azusa Pacific Cougars (3-3) on Tuesday night brought their first win over a top-8 team this year, the first time they’ve won every event and the first time they’ve beaten a team this year other than Hawaii Pacific.
It’s a much-needed confidence boost: Oregon, for all of its quality losses, had been an outlier amongst top teams in the NCATA rankings for a while now. A sub-.500 record stood out, and despite a preseason No. 2 tag, their participation in the Championships was in doubt.
Those claims were silenced on Tuesday. A commanding performance combined everything good about the Ducks’ prior performances — an always-stellar pyramid event churned out an average score of 9.85 — whilst the team event, which had plagued Oregon in prior meets, was finally just enough instead of the reverse. The Ducks won the first five events by an average of 0.99, and prevailed in the team event by just 0.45 points.
That team event wasn’t outstanding — an assigned score of 90.820 was right around the Ducks’ season average of 90.542 — but it didn’t let them down. Azusa Pacific is at Oregon’s level — a similar number of quality performances will probably keep them in the top eight, but a win for the Ducks in SoCal is huge for their own seeding hopes.
Not only will it keep them, likely, in the top half of the field, it’ll push teams like the Cougars down. This is a win that Oregon needed — and got at the right time.
Those firsts will have to turn into ‘agains’, though, if Oregon wants to push for the national title that it’s been craving. This performance, for all of its sunshine, was an outlier in California, and the Ducks will have to win again on the road against another top-8 team if they have any hope of progressing.
That’s not something that’s been proven yet — for all of the big-meet experience on the roster, from coaches Taylor Susnara and Karly Nowak down the list of seniors, it’s been tough when the lights are brightest. A difficult schedule didn’t swing Oregon’s way, and so West Virginia must become a proving ground rather than a regurgitation of past achievements. It’s in their locker — it’s always been in their locker. They just haven’t shown it often enough.
But for all of that pessimism, it’s hard to overstate how crucial this victory is. A loss would’ve left Oregon at 2-4 on the year, and arguing its case for a championship slot with two victories over now-unranked Hawaii Pacific. Instead, the Ducks can hang their hat on a victory over a finals-quality team who’ve given trouble to several teams this year, moving into what is almost assuredly a championships slot with a positive mindset.
Oregon will now await the final two sets of NCATA Championship Rankings, the first of which will be released later today. Those rankings will determine seeding — the Ducks will hope for an easier path to the final, where they could have a revenge opportunity against one of the two other sides they’ve lost to this season.
Meets will be held in West Virginia, on a short turnaround that could just benefit Oregon, who performed better on Tuesday night with just three days of rest than it has almost all season. A path to the final would involve three meets on back-to-back-to-back days — asking more of these athletes than has been done all year. If they can manage it — if they can do just enough — the title could just be there for the taking.
