Oregon Baseball - vs. USC

Oregon Softball - vs. Cal

Oregon Men’s Golf - @ The Goodwin, Stanford, CA

Oregon Women’s Golf - @ Ping/ASU Invitational, Phoenix, AZ

When: Thursday - Sunday

It’s a busy weekend for Oregon spring sports as both Diamond Ducks teams and the Men’s and Women’s golf teams are on the field of play. All these programs are having significant success and should make for an exciting weekend for Oregon sports fans. Here’s a review of recent action and the competitions the Ducks face:

WOMEN’S GOLF – #2 Ducks Tee Up At Ping/ASU Invitational (Fri-Sun) – The women’s golf team, off it’s come-from-behind victory over a stacked field at the Northrup Grumman Challenge in Palos Verdes, California March 13-15, travels to Arizona this weekend. Starting Friday, the Ping/ASU Invitational will be held at the home of the Sun Devils, Phoenix’s Papago Golf Course. The course will be set up to play at 6426 yards, slightly longer than the regular White tees set-up, to a par of 72.

The Sun Devils were a respectable 4^th at the Northrup Grumman Challenge, finishing 17 strokes behind Oregon’s winning score. Oregon’s women have won the last two tournaments in which they participated and had the entire team finish in the top 12 as individuals at the Northup Grumman.

Sixteen teams (84 golfers) will contest the Invitational. Pac-12 participants in addition to Oregon and host Arizona State will be Arizona, Colorado, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA and Washington. Harvard, Michigan, Northwestern and Virginia will also compete. On Friday morning, Oregon will play the first round with UCLA, Harvard and Denver. This means that a foursome consisting of the #5 player from each of these schools will tee off at 8:50 am. They will be followed in 10-minute increments by the #4 players, #3 players and so on. Second and third round tee times will be based on the previous day’s finish.

After the trip to Arizona, the Ducks will visit Napa, California for the Silverado Showdown at the Silverado Country Club the first weekend in April and then will host the Pac-12 Championships at the Eugene Country Club April 18 – 20. To state the obvious, Oregon appears to be the class of the Conference and will be the favorites to win the Conference Championship in Eugene. Live scoring for the Ping/ASU Invitational is available at golfstat.com. (Note: ASU informs ATQ that they are using volunteer scorers for this tournament, so there may be some delays in posting scores to golfstat).

Photo by Douglas Stringer/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

BASEBALL – Ducks Beat Gonzaga, Face Trojans

Oregon comes into the weekend with a season record of 14 – 6 after winning 4 in a row and 7 out of their last 8. On Tuesday, the Ducks traveled to Spokane for a mid-week game against the #19 Gonzaga Bulldogs and came out 9 – 5 winners in a tilt some believed was more exciting than it should have been. Oregon scored 8 of its 9 runs in the first 4 innings but cooled off at the plate as the game progressed, something that hasn’t happened much to this team in recent outings. Oregon used 8 pitchers, with Logan Mercado (3-0) getting the win while pitching only 1.1 innings.

The Trojans come to Eugene with a 13 – 6 record having lost a home series to the Cal Golden Bears 2 – 1 last weekend and beaten Cal State Fullerton 11 - 10 on Tuesday. The Trojans needed a 5-run rally in the 7^th and 8^th innings to erase a 10 – 6 deficit and win that game. USC has struggled at the plate, scoring only 113 runs in their 18 games, averaging fewer than 6 runs a game. Sophomore outfielder Adrian Colon-Rosado leads the Trojans with a .400 average and has yet to make an error this season. Three other players are hitting over .300. USC has only 16 home runs with Redshirt junior catcher Tyler Lozano topping the list with 5 dingers and 16 RBI’s. Colon-Rosado has 14 RBIs, and Redshirt senior outfielder Trevor Halsema has 13. USC plays solid field defense, having made only 17 errors so far this season.

USC has started 6 different pitchers in 19 games, but the majority of those starts (13) have been taken by just 3 pitchers: Jaden Agassi (5 starts, 4.09 ERA), Tyler Stromsborg (5, 2.88) and the aptly-named Charlie Hurley (4, 2.19) – all of whom are Sophomore right-handers. Red-shirt Junior right-hander Carson Lambert has the lowest ERA on the staff at 1.25 but has pitched only 21.2 innings in 9 appearances in short relief. The Ducks might also see Redshirt senior southpaw Isaac Esqueda in a starting role. He has started twice, has not appeared in relief and has an 0.77 ERA over 11.2 innings. Of the four pitchers Oregon is likely to see start one of the three games, Stromsborg seems to offer the toughest test. He has struck out 24 in 25 innings of work while walking only 7 batters. USC has also spread the relief work around, having given 16 players a chance to pitch at least 1 inning. The Trojans used 5 pitchers against Cal State Fullerton on Tuesday but none of its regular starters.

Oregon’s hitters have had tremendous success against relief pitching in recent weeks. The Ducks already appear to be the better team, but if they can chase the Trojans starting pitchers, the series could get out-of-hand.

Games available on Oregon Live Stream and radio on the Oregon Sports Network.

MEN’S GOLF – Large Field Awaits Ducks at The Goodwin – While not receiving the same notoriety as the women’s program thus far in 2022, the Oregon men’s golf team has grabbed its share of impressive finishes. The Duck men have won twice – at the Saint Mary’s Invitational at Poppy Hills GC in Pebble Beach, California and earlier this month at the Bandon Dunes Championship. The team also sports a 2^nd-place finish at The Prestige tournament, played on the Greg Norman-designed The Club at PGA West in LaQuinta, California in late February.

Oregon is coming off a 5^th-place finish (of 14 teams) in the Duck Invitational at Eugene Country Club earlier this week. In that tournament, the Ducks placed two golfers in the top 15 with Gregory Solhaug leading the team by finishing 9^th. Washington took the top 3 individual spots, shot 19 under par as a team and won the tournament by 17 strokes over 2^nd-place Utah.

This week, Oregon Coach Casey Martin, a Stanford Alum, leads the Ducks on a visit to Stanford Golf Course to play in The Goodwin tournament which begins today. Twenty-five schools will participate. The course is set up to play at 6742 yards, par 70. In addition to Oregon and Stanford, Pac-12 representatives will include Cal, Colorado, UCLA, Washington and Washington State.

This afternoon Oregon will tee off on the first hole beginning at 1:20 pm in foursomes based on rank within each team with Stanford, Cal Poly and Howard University. On Friday, these schools will be together again, but will tee off beginning at 8:10 am on the 10th hole. The tournament could provide a mini-preview of the Men’s Pac-12 Championships which will take place April 25 – 27 at the Aldarra Golf Club in Sammamish, Washington. Teams from all over the country, including Rutgers, Drexel and Florida Atlantic, will join the large field for this week’s action.

Following the trip to The Goodwin, Oregon’s men will play in the Western Intercollegiate tournament at the Pasatiempo Golf Club in Santa Cruz, California April 11 – 13, and then have a weekend off before the Pac-12 Championships. Live scoring updates for The Goodwin are available through GoDucks.com or at golfstat.com.

SOFTBALL – Ducks Rally to Beat BYU, Return Home for Pac-12 Clash With Cal

On Tuesday, Oregon added a game to their successful Utah trip, beating BYU 9 -3 with a furious late-game rally. Oregon led 3 – 0 and seemed in control, but then gave up 3 runs in the bottom of the fifth that allowed BYU to tie the game. Oregon then went on one of their patented 2022 season late game rallies and scored 4 in the top of the 6^th and 2 in the top of the 7^th while shutting out the Cougars over those innings. Oregon stole 9 bases in the contest. Reagan Breedlove (2-0 record, 1 start, 3.66 ERA) got the win pitching the final 2.1 innings.

Oregon has now scored 194 runs in their 26 games (7.4 average) while holding opponents to just 62. Sophomore utility player Hanna Delgado leads the Ducks with a .449 batting average. After a slow start with the long ball, the Ducks have now tallied 38 home runs, led by Junior outfielder Ariel Carlson’s eight. In the circle, the Ducks have been led by Makenna Kliethermes (7-2 record, 9 starts, 2.59 ERA), Stevie Hansen (6-0, 8, 1.87) and Jordan Dail (7-2, 7, 3.72). The trio has 162 strikeouts and 41 walks in 147 innings.

This week, the Ducks host the Cal Golden Bears in Eugene. Oregon comes in at 22 – 4 and increasingly looks like one of the top teams in the Pac-12 if not the nation. The Golden Bears are 20 – 9 on the season and come into the Oregon series after winning two of three games from Washington last weekend in Berkeley. Previously, Cal was run-ruled by #1 Oklahoma 8 – 0 in 5 innings in the Rainbow Wahine Classic in Honolulu, where they also beat Baylor twice and went 1 – 1 against Hawai’i. For comparison, Oregon won 2 of 3 from Baylor in Texas and Cal lost to BYU 5 – 0 earlier this month in the San Diego Classic.

Junior catcher Makena Smith is leading Cal’s offense, hitting .485 with 8 home runs and 25 RBIs. Keeping her off the basepaths would aid Oregon in winning the series. Sophomore infielder Tatum Anzaldo is hitting .441 and has 6 stolen bases on 7 attempts. Cal has three more batters hitting over .300. Sophomore Pitcher Sona Halajian also has 7 homers and 25 RBI’s and is hitting .392. Overall, Cal has stolen 33 bases on 40 attempts. Cal has scored 161 runs in their 29 games and has not scored in double digits since beating Fresno State 10 – 0 almost a month ago.

Cal has used 4 pitchers overall, with three working most of the innings. Halajian and Sophomore Haylei Archer have each started a dozen games, with Freshman Annabel Teperson earning 4 starts. Halajian leads the staff with a 2.44 ERA and Archer is at 2.97. Halajian has struck out 73 batters in 77 innings, has issued only 23 walks and has thrown 7 complete games. Archer has been much less efficient striking out 49 in 66 innings of work but walking 43 batters. While Oregon is likely to see both Halajian and Archer, Halajian is likely to present a much stiffer challenge to Oregon’s hitters. However, Oregon’s bats have really been humming, with hits and runs coming in bunches. Cal is going to need excellent performances from their pitching staff and their hitters to keep pace.

Live TV available on Pac-12 insider, radio on KWVA 88.1 FM