By Jakob Salao

Eugene, ORE. – Oregon softball began their last home series of the regular season on Friday with a shortened victory over Oregon State 5-0. The game was delayed at the bottom of the 5th due to rain and since the rain didn’t let up, both teams agreed to cancel the game and move on to the next one in the series with Oregon taking the victory. 

Both of these Oregon teams have had hitting struggles all throughout April, and have been on long losing streaks. Coming into this series, OSU was coming off the end of a 7-game losing streak, while Oregon had lost the last 11 of 13 games. However, the Ducks’ batters had seemingly come back to form against one of the tougher pitchers in the Pac-12. 

Mariah Mazon made the start for the Beavers and came into this game as the most impressive member of the OSU pitching staff. Mazon had a 1.62 ERA with 160 strikeouts. However, against the Ducks, Mazon gave up 7 hits and 5 earned runs in the 4 innings she pitched, along with 3 strikeouts. The weather may have had an effect on this, as it was clear once the rain started pouring, Mazon’s pitching skill started to take a hit. Comparatively, Stevie Hansen played incredibly well for the Ducks. The freshman threw 4 strikeouts with just 1 hit in the 5 innings she pitched. 

While the Beavers struggled to get any offense going, Vallery Wong was by far the most impressive on the field. In her 2 appearances at the plate, Wong would hit a home run each time. Her aggressiveness in hitting gave Oregon an early lead and their first Game 1 win of a series. 

Oregon softball will continue this series against OSU tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. and will try to close out the series while they lead 1-0. \

Audio Story

Postgame Audio