EUGENE, Ore. — In the middle innings of Friday's series opener between Oregon and Oral Roberts at PK Park, two facts about the history of the NCAA Super Regional round spelled trouble for the Ducks' hopes of making the College World Series.

For one thing, no team had ever come back from an eight-run deficit in a baseball Super Regional. And for another, teams that win the series opener had nearly an 80 percent chance of advancing to Omaha.

Those were the objective facts. And for the Ducks, they were bleak. But there was another factor in play, one that was more subjective— the heart of the UO baseball program. And in the end, that was the most important factor of all.

Playing in front of a raucous home crowd, Oregon advanced to within a game of the College World Series by walking off Oral Roberts on Friday, 9-8, on an RBI single by all-American Drew Cowley in the bottom of the ninth. Trailing 8-0 entering the bottom of the third, the Ducks became the first team ever to overcome an eight-run deficit in the Super Regional round — in 96 previous instances, it had never happened.

"This team," UO coach Mark Wasikowski said, "won't quit. This team's got a toughness to them that I've never seen before."

Oregon used four home runs to rally within 8-6 through six innings, two from Bennett Thompson and one of those a three-run shot in the fourth. Rikuu Nishida's school-record 65th run of the season got the Ducks within one on Cowley's first RBI of the night in the seventh, all-time program RBI record-holder Tanner Smith plated Cowley to tie it, and Cowley drove in Nishida with one out in the ninth to win it.

"It's just awesome," said Cowley, the UO single-season RBI record-holder with 69 entering Saturday's second game of the Super Regional. "Just a great feeling. (It was) a team effort today. Just a lot of fun."

How It Happened: Five days after throwing four shutout innings to open Oregon's NCAA Regional final victory over Xavier in Nashville, freshman Grayson Grinsell got the start for the Ducks on Friday. He got the ball in front of the second-largest crowd in PK Park history, 4,476, against an Oral Roberts team that had won 21 straight games and advanced to Super Regionals despite being the No. 4 seed in a regional hosted by Oklahoma State.

Grinsell stranded a runner in each of the first two innings, while Oregon's hitters were retired in order in the bottom of each frame. Then, in the third, Oregon's staff lost command.

A walk and a single put runners on the corners for the Golden Eagles with none out, and a groundball out made it 1-0. Another walk followed, a three-run homer made it 4-0 and a double ended Grinsell's night. On came Dylan McShane, who helped stabilize Oregon's staff in their regional opener a week earlier. But he wasn't as sharp this time — after a quick out, the next four hitters reached, the last one making it 8-0 on a three-run bloop single to short right field.

The Ducks quickly made it clear they weren't going to roll over and accept a loss. On the first pitch of the bottom of the third, Jacob Walsh hit his 15th homer of the season, and Thompson followed with another solo shot to make it 8-2.

"You can't hit a seven-run home run; I've never seen it," Thompson said. "So I was just trying to put a good swing on the ball. That guy had been throwing a lot of strikes, and so I was just able to get a fastball in the zone and not trying to do too much. Ultimately the ball left the yard but I wasn't trying to do that; it just ended up happening. So that was awesome to get the momentum back on our side there."

Ian Umlandt, the winning pitcher in Sunday's regional clincher at Vanderbilt, had gotten the last out of the third, and he faced the minimum in the fourth thanks in part to a runner caught stealing by his catcher, Thompson. In the bottom of the inning, Tanner Smith and Drew Smith both singled with one out, and with two away Thompson launched his second homer of the night to get the Ducks within 8-5.

Logan Mercado came on in the top of the fifth and threw three scoreless, and the Ducks got within 8-6 on a solo homer by Drew Smith in the sixth. Oregon then tied it in the seventh when Nishida reached on catcher's interference with one out, Bryce Boettcher followed by reaching on an error, Cowley plated Nishida and Tanner Smith brought home Boettcher.

Suddenly, the game was tied. The fans were on their feet, hanging on every pitch.

"Our fans wouldn't let us lose," Wasikowski said of the crowd, which even filled temporary bleachers erected for the game in left field. "Our fans were amazing. I don't think PK Park's ever been that electric."

Matt Dallas opened the eighth on the mound for Oregon, and with one on and one out he fought back from a 3-0 hole to strike out OSU's No. 3 hitter, Jonah Cox — who came into the day hitting .424 and singled in the first to extend his hitting streak to 45 games. Josh Mollerus (3-2) then entered and got the third out of the inning, before coaxing a double play to end the top of the ninth.

That set the stage for Oregon's walk-off win. To that point the Ducks didn't have a walk all night, but Gavin Grant took four straight balls to open the inning, and Nishida took another four in a row to put the winning run in scoring position. Oral Roberts then called upon closer Cade Denton, MVP of the regional win a week earlier.

Boettcher was unsuccessful trying to bunt the runners over, with Grant being thrown out at third. But Cowley drove a single into right field that scored Nishida and the celebration was on, with his teammates chasing Cowley into center field in order to douse him with a bucket of sports drink.

"I want them to enjoy what they did, because that's special," Wasikowski said. "I want them to enjoy the locker room. … We'll settle them down. We'll get them calmed back down. These guys are hungry. They want to do something that hasn't been done since 1954."

Notable: The Ducks rallied to win after trailing by seven or more runs for the third time this season. … Oregon hit at least four homers for the fifth time in 2023. … Tanner Smith reached 300 career hits with with his single in the fourth inning.

Quotable:
Head coach Mark Wasikowski on the resiliency of the pitching staff
"Had we not experienced what we experienced with a really crazy environment last week, we might not be able to control ourselves this week. That's what we saw in Mercado and Dallas and those guys, to be able to come back in counts and do the things that they did. I think that was just because they've now been in big environments. They've faced great players and they have the confidence and the belief that they're able to have success."

Catcher Bennett Thompson on the mentality behind the comeback
"We do this thing throughout the fall, we call it the 'skins game' in our scrimmages, where the goal isn't to win the the overall game it's to win every inning. And you saw after that third inning, we were able to win something like five of the six innings. Because it's hard to have an eight-run inning; you can't get it all back at once. But if you can keep chipping away and chipping away at a pitching staff, keeping the pressure on them, that's all you can do in that situation. And so it doesn't matter if it's 8-0 we're losing or if we're up by 15. Our goal is to win the inning, and today we were able to do that because of our pitching and because of our lineup."

Wasikowski on being in position to reach the CWS for the first time since 1954
"You create your own traditions. And you create your traditions with hard work, you create your traditions with belief and you create your traditions with young people that love each other, and there's relationships that are built that are not built on sand. This group is a blessing . ... I remember when Vanderbilt was the worst team in the SEC, and going to Vanderbilt and even losing one game at Vanderbilt would have been deemed a failure, and yet Tim Corbin established that program to what he did. Skip Bertman at LSU won five national championships in the Nineties; at one point LSU was the worst fielding facility in the Southeastern Conference. We've got a ways to go before we can match any of that kind of stuff. But tonight was a nice night."

Up Next: The Ducks look to clinch the Super Regional in game two Saturday (6 p.m., ESPNU).