Whenever the University of Oregon softball team makes the post-season, I look forward to watching them even if I didn't see any of their preceding games.
Baseball appeals to me also, but softball -- a woman's college sport -- is more entertaining for me, partly because a game moves along more quickly given the lack of annoying pick-off moves by the pitcher (in softball a base runner can't get a lead until the pitch is thrown) and a game lasts seven innings instead of nine (even shorter if a team is ahead by eight or more runs after five innings due to the run-ahead rule).
This year the Oregon softball team got the #16 seed in the first round of the NCAA tournament. That enabled them to host a regional match-up in Eugene featuring four teams: Oregon, Stanford, Weber State, and Binghamton.
After Oregon beat Weber State in their first game on Friday, I was looking forward to them kicking Stanford's butt in their second game on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, Stanford did the kicking, winning 14-1. This meant that Oregon needed to win three games in a row to come out on top in the regional double elimination tournament.
Saturday evening I fired up my ESPN+ subscription and watched Oregon defeat Weber State, knocking them out of the tournament. Now the Ducks had to beat Stanford twice on Sunday. The first game against Stanford yesterday went well for Oregon. They won 15-5 in six innings after the run-ahead rule was invoked.
That set the stage for a fantastic night game against Stanford. I was ready to cheer the Ducks on, figuring they'd do well given their previous blowout. The first inning, though, made me think that the game wasn't in the cards for the Ducks.
What happened in the bottom of the first was that Stanford had loaded the bases with two outs. When the Oregon catcher camped out under an easily playable foul ball, it looked like the inning would end scoreless. However, the ball popped out of her mitt, giving the batter another chance.
Which the Stanford player made the most of, hitting a grand slam home run that made the score 4-0 just like that. A story in today's Oregonian tells the inspiring tale of what happened next.
Dez Patmon’s walk-off three-run home run punched Oregon’s ticket to host an NCAA Super Regional.
Patmon, who scored the game-tying run after a leadoff triple in the sixth, crushed the first pitch she saw in the seventh to send the No. 16 seed Ducks to a 10-7 comeback win over Stanford in the Eugene Regional final Sunday night in front of a berserk 2,448 at Jane Sanders Stadium.
...Emma Cox, who had a costly error that led to a grand slam in the first, hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the third to make it 7-5.
...“We had some miscues today in both games that could have took us out of it and it didn’t,” Oregon coach Melyssa Lombardi said. “These guys were so on a mission to get what they want. To watch them come together as a team and compete on every pitch was amazing. To me, this was the last little piece that I’ve been waiting on for this team — they have it — they needed to know that whether we’re up, we’re down, it doesn’t matter. These guys can go do and get what they want.”
...The Cardinal loaded the bases with one out in the first. Lyndsey Grein got a pop out to second and had the third out with Economides popping up in foul territory, but the ball went off of Cox’s glove. One pitch later, Economides smacked a grand slam to left.
“There’s going to be tough breaks in any game,” Cox said. “I’m thankful for my coaches and my teammates who pulled me through it. They said, ‘Nope, you’re coming along with us. We’re getting you through.’ If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know where I’d be.”
Lombardi said the freshman catcher’s mental toughness is beyond her years, which allowed Cox to avoid getting down after the drop out in foul territory.
“Sometimes things happen and that’s what I love about this team, is that if something doesn’t go our way, we have your back and to see her reset and move and to hit a bomb and be crucial in this game,” Lombardi said. “I feel like if she’s a young freshman I don’t know if she resets. But she’s not.”
Now Oregon hosts Liberty next weekend in a super-regional two-out-of-three tournament in Eugene. Naturally I'll be watching and rooting for the Ducks, who deserve to go to the Women's College World Series -- which they will if they beat Liberty twice.
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