When the No. 12 Oregon softball team started the Pacific-10 Conference season by losing seven of its first nine games, the Ducks were forced to take a simpler approach to the way they compete.@@http://www.goducks.com/SportSelect.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=500&SPID=245&SPSID=4374@@
Over the past few weeks, Oregon, sporting its highest ranking of the season, has dramatically turned things around with back-to-back Pac-10 series wins against Oregon State and Arizona, with the latter being one of the more impressive accomplishments of the year for a team that began the season with aspirations of reaching the Women’s College World Series.@@http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=4377&SPID=245&DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=205146509&DB_OEM_ID=500@@
Yet, when they step between the lines, the Ducks emphasize playing their own game and not allowing the competition to influence their game plan. It doesn’t work every day, but after taking two of three at the infamous Hillenbrand Stadium last weekend in Tucson — Arizona is known to have the loudest fans in the conference — it certainly appears to be helping.
“We played our game and didn’t really look at the jerseys we were facing,” Oregon shortstop Kelsey Chambers said. “We were just acting like we were playing ourselves pretty much and didn’t let the crowd bother us or anything.”
Chambers, a junior from Concord, Calif., broke out of a ghastly hitting slump in the Ducks’ second win over the Wildcats. She went 4-for-4 with two home runs, two doubles, three runs scored and three RBI, and she set the tone for a 16-hit performance that led to the 12-6 victory.@@http://www.goducks.com/downloads2/415606.htm?ATCLID=205145040&SPSID=4374&SPID=245&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=500@@
“I think for her to zone in on what she can hit well really paid off,” senior Monique Fuiava said. “I know there’s a lot of us, myself included, struggling right now to decipher which is a ball and which is a strike.
“A lot of us aren’t seeing the ball really well.”
The previous night, hitting out of the No. 7 hole, Chambers went 0-for-4, but with her strong bunting ability, second-year head coach Mike White elected to move Chambers up the order behind leadoff hitter Courtney Ceo. The move, White said, was based on the lack of execution at the plate in bunting situations recently.
“That’s one of the issues we’ve had, even last weekend,” White said. “We didn’t really get the bunt down when we needed it. It cost us a couple of runs, so that is a concern for us this week.”
While her breakout game at the plate was encouraging — she went 0-for-3 the next day — Chambers still had plenty to work on this week in practice. As the Ducks welcome in No. 10 Stanford and sophomore pitcher Teagan Gerhart this weekend, Oregon has focused on pitch selection against a dominant rise and curveball pitcher.@@http://www.gostanford.com/sports/w-softbl/mtt/gerhart_teagan00.html@@
Gerhart (20-8), ranks third in the Pac-10 with a 1.61 ERA, to go along with 197 strikeouts against 52 walks. Though she was injured when Oregon traveled to Palo Alto last season, the Ducks have faced their own rise-ball pitcher, junior Sam Skillingstad, this week in practice to mimic Gerhart’s go-to pitches.@@http://www.pac-10.org/portals/7/images/softball/stats/HTML/lgsumm.htm@@
“It’s gonna come down to our discipline at the plate,” White said. “If we chase the high pitch we’re going to have an extremely tough time. She is good enough to beat us — anybody is when you expand the strike zone.”
The Cardinal went 2-1 against the Washington Huskies at home last weekend, a team Oregon went 1-2 with in early April, and also cruised to a 12-0 win over Santa Clara on Tuesday afternoon in non-conference action. Gerhart did not play in that contest, but senior Ashley Chinn tallied her fifth shutout of the season and improved to 16-3 overall.
Offensively Stanford is no slouch with team batting average at .321, and 82 stolen bases, which tied the school record set by the Cardinal a year ago.@@http://www.gostanford.com/sports/w-softbl/stats/2010-2011/teamcume.html@@
Fortunately for the Ducks, they play their next six games in the friendly confines of Howe Field, with Stanford coming on the front end of back-to-back Pac-10 series with UCLA visiting Eugene to finish out the regular season.
“We’ve seen what can happen when you don’t defend your home turf,” Fuiava said. “All we want to do is just make sure we give our fans a reason to keep coming to our games. There’s no reason to keep coming if we can’t pull a ‘W’ out.”