The Ducks flew north to Washington to play their former Pac-12 foe the Washington Huskies (20-8, 0-1 Big Ten). Oregon softball (25-2, 1-0 Big Ten) entered the weekend with the lowest ERA in seven innings of the Big Ten conference with an average 1.75 ERA.
Oregon came off of back-to-back shutouts over No. 8 Florida State in its two-game split during the Jane Sanders Classic where the Ducks finished 4-1 overall.
The Virginia Tech transfer Lyndsey Grein stepped into the circle and put on a show in the 9-0 shutout, allowing just two hits off of 99 total pitches.
Grein notched 11 strikeouts, marking her 103rd strikeout of the season and up in the running to jump from 15th in the nation to be tied for seventh.
On the offensive side of the pitch, sophomore third baseman Katie Flannery notched her first career multi-home run game with multiple RBI of her career.
At the top of the third, Flannery homered to right center field to send Kai Luschar and herself back to home plate, putting the Ducks up 3-0. It followed a Stephanie Ma’ake sac fly that batted in Kedre Lushar to put Oregon up 1-0 in the second inning.
But Flannery wasn’t done. At the top of the sixth with the Ducks up 4-0, Flannery homered one last time, sending it just left of center field and scoring Paige Sinicki in the process.
“I was just trying to see ball, hit ball hard,” Flannery said, who finished the day with five total RBI, in just three at bats.
The Ducks went on to get walked twice in the fifth with bases loaded up 7-0 and scored Ayanna Shaw and Kaylynn Jones.
After the Ducks lined out and grounded out to wrap up the fifth, the Huskies had one last chance to keep it within eight runs in order to stall the run rule with Oregon up 9-0. But Grein shut down Washington’s aspirations, forcing a groundout, pop fly and struck out Washington’s Charity Sevaaesti swinging.
Today’s performance marked her fourth complete game of the season.“It’s easy to play when you have the team that we have, and when you have the support on both offense and defense. My teammates keep me going and help keep me focused,” Grein said.
Oregon is now 25-2 overall and undefeated to start off conference play.
First pitch is set for 12:02 pm PST on Saturday, March 15 to resume the Ducks versus Dawgs series.