Ducks sweep Cougars to end baseball regular season

Every college baseball team wants to be peaking around post-season time and like last season, Oregon Ducks baseball seems to be doing just that.

The Ducks ended the regular season on a high not as they swept Washington State in a three-game weekend series at PK Park. In the finale, Mason Neville crushed two home runs to lead Oregon to the 10-4 victory.

Starting pitcher Kevin Seitter threw 5 1/3 innings, and allowed four earned runs and six hits while striking out four. The bullpen consisting of Ryan Featherston and Bradley Mullan went the rest of the way.

Oregon broke through in the third inning on Neville’s big fly to right field to make it 2-0. But the Cougars took the lead right back in the top of the fourth with three runs to take a brief 3-2 lead.

It was brief because the Duck struck back right away in the bottom half of the fame on Maddox Molony’s home run to left and it was 4-3. Oregon wouldn’t relinquish the lead the rest of the way.

The Ducks added two in the fifth, one in the sixth and two more in the eighth to end the scoring.

Home runs was the name of the game for the entire series. Neville hot two  bombs in the first game to lead the Ducks to a 9-2 win and in Game 2, Bryce Boettcher’s three-run homer ended a seven-run eighth inning to rally the Ducks past WSU 8-4.

Now Oregon will prepare to go down to Scottsdale, Ariz. to play in the Pac-12 tournament where it will be the defending champs. The Ducks will be the 2-seed if Oregon State defeats Arizona Saturday night. But if the Wildcats beat the Beavers, the Ducks will be the 3-seed.

The nine-team tourney begins on Tuesday, May 21.