Ducks Continue Fall Softball Rampage

Oregon continued its rampage through its Fall schedule tonight against Western Oregon University in a game that - for the second time in 3 days - ran longer than the Livestream scheduled to broadcast it. The feed gave up the ghost in the bottom of the 9th with Oregon at bat. Terra McGowan had just hit a lead-off solo shot to give Oregon a probably insurmountable 26 - 3 lead. Oregon’s football Ducks joined the Softball Ducks before the game to honor Oregon Tight End Spencer Webb, who was tragically killed in a climbing accident this Summer.

All the games Oregon is playing this month are heavy on unusual situations one doesn’t normally see in regular season softball. Tonight was no exception, as the game was scheduled for 10 innings - or perhaps the teams agreed mid-game to go 10 innings. Had the usual “mercy rules” been in place, the game would have ended after the third inning when Oregon led 17 - 0. But of course, the purpose of these games is to give players some “real” game work which we can all agree is different from practice, no matter how mis-matched the teams or weird the rules changes. In addition, it would have hardly been worth it for Western Oregon to drive down from Monmouth to run through their batting order once.

In any event, Oregon’s bats came out on fire in this game. The Ducks sent 16 batters to the plate in the bottom of the first inning and scored 12 runs. Oregon did a great job of stringing together singles and doubles in the inning, but Hanna Delgado also bashed a lead-off triple and Alyssa Daniell hit a two-run homer off the top of the fence in right field to make it 5 - 0.

Western Oregon had no answers for Oregon starting pitcher Allison Benning who left after giving up a slow-rolling single down the third baseline to the first batter in the 4th inning. WOU had somewhat better success against Morgan Scott who now came on in “relief” of Benning. Scott gave up a triple to left center and later a single to right center that was misplayed into a double and the Wolves had cut the lead to 17 - 2. Scott settled down after that.

Oregon continued to score, however, coming up with additional runs in the 6th and 7th to lead 24 - 3. Reagan Breedlove was now working the circle for Oregon, and was really slinging it, reaching 66 miles per hour on her fastball, a pitch the booth crew referred to as “scary.”

In Oregon’s half of the 8th inning, another “abnormal” situation came about, as Kaitlyn Howard both led off the inning with a walk, and also appeared as the 5th batter for Oregon in the inning, also drawing a walk. Oregon went up 25 - 3 in that inning as Daniell produced a sacrifice groundout that plated KK Humphreys from third.

Ultimately, Oregon pounded out 25 hits and won the game 28 - 6. Western Oregon acquitted itself pretty well with 6 runs on 14 hits. The Wolves also committed 4 errors primarily caused by Oregon’s speed on the basepaths and really, really hard-hit balls.

Oregon’s next Fall Ball action comes against Southern Oregon at the Jane this Sunday, October 23 at 11:00 am. At the moment, this game is not scheduled for the Livestream but will be available on the radio.