Late Rally Not Enough In Series Finale
EUGENE, Ore. — For the sixth time in eight tries this season, the Oregon baseball team has won a weekend series in Pac-12 play, though a sweep continues to prove elusive for the Ducks.
One day after sweeping a doubleheader from Utah, the No. 21 Ducks were unable to finish off the series with another win Sunday, dropping a 9-7 decision at PK Park. Oregon (32-15, 14-10 Pac-12) enters the final two weeks of Pac-12 play just three games out of first place.
"We're disappointed in the fact that we weren't able to sweep the team that came in here in first place," UO coach Mark Wasikowski said. "We win a series and we're disappointed; the standard is high obviously, when you win a series and guys are really disappointed. And so I'm glad that that's the standard here."
The Ducks hit at least four home runs in a game for the sixth time this season, including two during a four-run eighth inning. But that came after the Utes broke the game open with four of their own in the top of the inning, and Utah added an insurance run in the ninth that Oregon was unable to answer.
How It Happened: Core Jackson led off the game for Utah with a single, took second on a balk and scored the game's first run on a two-out single. Maddox Molony tied it up in the second with his seventh home run of the season, a new UO freshman record.
Justin Cassella hit another solo home run for Oregon in the third, giving the Ducks a 2-1 lead. But that was their only lead of the day, and it was short-lived. A two-run homer and an RBI bunt single resulted in a three-run fourth inning for the Utes, putting them up 4-2.
A wild pitch with the bases loaded in the bottom of the fifth brought Cassella in, and Oregon was within a run. Jaxon Jordan and Ryan Featherston kept Utah off the board in the sixth and seventh, but the Utes broke it open in the eighth — an infield single with the bases loaded made it 5-3, and two batters later Jackson came up with the bases still full and drove in all three runners with a double.
"The free bases that we gave them were pretty expensive," Wasikowski said, alluding to a walk and a hit batter earlier in the inning. "The Jackson kid, that's a difference-maker swing right there, a two-strike pitch into the left-center field gap. That was a tremendous at-bat by their best player, and so I tip my hat to him."
Down 8-3, the Ducks got back within one in the bottom of the eighth, on a three-run homer from Bennett Thompson followed by a solo shot from Bryce Boettcher. Thompson was 3-for-27 in his last seven games prior to the pinch-hit homer Sunday.
"He's a leader," Wasikowski said. "He's a guy that we need down the stretch, and hopefully that gets him going and gets him going in the right direction. That'd be great."
Trailing 8-7 entering the ninth, the Ducks allowed another run before mustering only a two-out single by Jeffery Heard in the ninth.
Up Next: The Ducks open a three-game series at Washington on Friday (7 p.m., Pac-12 Washington).