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Ducks Face Stanford in Inaugural Pac-12 Softball Tournament First Round

Oregon Backs in to #5 Seed with Losses to Utah

ATQ-EXCLUSIVE Softball Morgan L. Blackwell

With the inaugural Pac-12 Conference Softball Tournament looming this week, Oregon’s softball team had about the worst weekend imaginable, shockingly losing three straight to Utah at The Jane and making their road to a Pac-12 Tournament championship much more difficult. It was the only series sweep suffered this season by Oregon, and their longest losing streak of the year.

ATQ-EXCLUSIVE Softball Morgan L. Blackwell

When the Utah series began, Oregon had won 13 games in a row and was riding a tidal wave of momentum. With a victory or two, the Ducks were likely to finish in third place in the final regular season Conference standings. They would then have drawn a first-round match-up with #6 Cal, a team they swept on the road just one week ago. Instead, Oregon scored just 3 runs in the three games against the Utes, handing them the #3 seed and falling all the way to #5 where they will now have to face the Stanford Cardinal. Even worse, Oregon now resides on the same side of the bracket as #1 Seed UCLA, which the Ducks will face in the second round if they can get past the Cardinal.

ATQ-EXCLUSIVE Softball Morgan L. Blackwell

Stanford won the season series, played in Eugene in mid-March, 2 games to 1. All three games were close, with the first a 3 - 1 Stanford win in 8 innings, Oregon winning the second game 2 - 1 and then Stanford winning the deciding game 2 - 1. The Cardinal finished the season 39 - 12 overall and 14 - 10 in the Conference while Oregon was 35 - 14 and also 14 - 10 in the Pac-12.

The tournament will open on Wednesday, May 10 with a single game between #8 Seed Arizona and #9 Seed Arizona State (Washington State, Colorado and USC do not field softball teams). The lucky winner of that game draws the Bruins on Thursday at 4:00 pm.

Here is the full schedule (all games played at Hillenbrand Stadium in Tucson, Arizona):

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Game 1 - #8 Arizona vs #9 Arizona State - 6:00 pm

Thursday, May 11, 2023

Game 2 - #3 Utah vs #6 California - 10:00 am

Game 3 - #2 Washington vs #7 Oregon State - 12:30 pm

Game 4 - #1 UCLA vs Arizona/Arizona State winner - 4:00 pm

Game 5 - #4 Stanford vs #5 Oregon - 6:30 pm

Friday, May 12, 2023

Game 6 - Game 2 winner vs Game 3 winner - 4:30 pm

Game 7 - Game 4 winner vs Game 5 winner - 7:30 pm

Saturday, May 13, 2023

Championship Game - Game 6 winner vs Game 7 winner - 7:00 pm