Ducks have had success on the road (2024)

ROBERT CESSNA

Blue Bell Park is a tough place to play, but the Oregon Ducks come into the super regionals against Texas A&M off an impressive three-game sweep at the Santa Barbara Regional.

The UC Santa Barbara Gauchos were 25-0 at home in 2024 and hosted NCAA Tournament games on campus for the first time in 15 appearances, but that didn’t deter the Ducks. Oregon leaned on solid pitching and timely hitting to beat the Gauchos and advance to the best-of-3 Bryan-College Station Super Regional.

The Ducks got the upper hand against Santa Barbara with a 2-1 victory in the winners’ bracket final. Oregon handed Gaucho pitcher Tyler Bremner his first loss of the season in 12 decisions. Oregon scored runs in the seventh and eighth innings and then held off the Gauchos, who scored once in the top of the ninth, but left the bases loaded, much to the chagrin of a school-record 2,110 fans. Oregon sophom*ore left-hander Grayson Grinsell threw seven shutout innings, allowing only three hits.

Oregon never allowed UC Santa Barbara and its fans to get involved in the rematch. The Ducks scored a run in the first inning and cruised to a 3-0 victory behind senior right-hander Kevin Seitter (8-4), who threw a four-hitter, all singles. He struck out seven and walked only one, though he did hit three batters. The Gauchos didn’t get a runner to second base until the ninth inning with two outs when they had back-to-back singles to put runners on the corners, but Seitter, a transfer from Quinnipiac, bounced back from a 2-0 count for a strikeout on his 128th pitch.

Oregon didn’t have an error in the tournament and turned four double plays, half of them in the championship game. Oregon, which was seeded third in the UC Santa Barbara Regional, never trailed in the three games. The Ducks eked out a 5-4 victory over second-seeded San Diego in the opener. The Ducks used only three pitchers in the 3-hour, 36-minute game that ended at six minutes past midnight. Starter RJ Gordon, a junior right-hander, went seven innings. Senior right-hander Brock Moore faced three batters, getting no outs as he allowed a three-run home run and two walks as the first five Aztecs reached to start the eighth inning. Senior right-hander Logan Mercado (1-0) threw the final four innings, allowing just one hit. He struck out three, walked one and hit two batters.

Oregon won the game on an 11th-inning home run by senior Bryce Boettcher, who is also a linebacker on the Ducks football team.

This is Oregon’s 11th NCAA tourney appearance in program history and its fourth straight. It’s the Ducks second straight super regional appearance. Oregon won the Nashville Regional last year, beating Xavier, twice sandwiched around an 8-7 upset of national sixth-seeded Vanderbilt.

“Experience matters,” UC Santa Barbara coach Andrew Checketts said. “We have a few guys out there [with postseason experience], but not a lot. You look over at the other dugout [Oregon], they’ve been to four regionals in a row. Every guy in their dugout has some of that experience.”

Oregon was third in the Pac-12 regular-season standings with a 19-11 record, just behind Arizona (20-10) and Oregon State (19-10). But the Ducks had a quiet exit at the league’s final tournament, losing to seventh-place Utah, 4-2, and fourth-place Southern California, 4-2. The silver lining for the Ducks was Grinsell and Seitter didn’t pitch.

“Maybe that rest helped them,” Oregon coach Mark Wasikowski said on the school’s website. “They’ve both been outstanding here down the stretch, and so I don’t know if that was the full key — but I don’t think it hurt. And for the strength of Kevin to finish that game off in the ninth inning, he would have punched us if we’d tried to come and take the ball away from him. He deserved the opportunity to win that game on his own.’

The national third-seeded Aggies (47-13) have thrived at home this year, going 35-3 at Olsen Field, including a sweep at the Bryan-College Station Regional last weekend.

NOTE: The series will open at 1 p.m. Saturday with Game 2 at 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Game 3, if needed, would be Monday with time to be determined. … Oregon doesn’t have a player from Texas on the roster, but athletic trainer Cody Peterman, a native Oregonian, earned his master’s degree in athletic training from A&M in 2016. … Oregon freshman shortstop Maddox Molony made the All-Pac-12 team with eight others earning honorable mention. Molony has 10 homers, a school record for a freshman. … Oregon’s 537 strikeouts are a school record. The Ducks average 9.3 strikeouts per game. A&M has 622 strikeouts, averaging 10.4 per game. … Oregon center fielder Boettcher earned honorable mention all-conference honors in football. … A year ago, Oregon wasn’t able to take advantage of hosting super regionals after winning the Nashville Regional. The Ducks beat Oral Roberts, 9-8 in the opener, but lost the next two, 8-7 and 11-6. Vanderbilt was 25-6 at home heading to the Nashville Regional, when it lost one-run games to Oregon and Xavier, 2-1. The Commodores were 13-2 in Southeastern Conference play, losing games to Arkansas and South Carolina.