Baseball Recap: Oregon Ducks vs Utah Valley Wolverines

Your Oregon Ducks took on the Utah Valley Wolverines in their first game of the Eugene Regionals on Friday night. After a couple uneventful innings to start the game, the Wolverines were able to put a 4 spot on the board in the top of the 3rd inning, coming off a double down the left field line and a single to both left and right field. Oregon would answer back, however, with a two-run homer from Drew Smith, and a solo shot from Anson Aroz one pitch later, cutting the UVU lead to 4-3 after 3 innings.

After three more scoreless innings UVU would tack on two more runs via a 2 RBI single up the middle, putting them ahead 6-3. And then things would get… weird. In the bottom of the 8th inning, after yet another bomb by Drew Smith to cut the deficit to 6-4, the Ducks were able to get runners on the corners with no outs. Chase Meggers hits a ball to left field; Anson Aroz tags up and goes home and… well. Here you go.

UVU challenges the play, the umpires decide to call Aroz out after a 10-minute review, Aroz gets ejected from the game, and Oregon ends the inning with a flyout in the next at bat. The Ducks were able to hold UVU scoreless in the top of the 9th, keeping it a one run game heading into the bottom of the inning. They would once again get runners on the corners in the 9th, scoring one run on a Jacob Walsh sac-fly, but that would be all they would get, losing the game 6-5.

I usually attempt to be pretty positive on here, but MAN… that one sucked. That Aroz call might be the worst call to go against Oregon since the 2011 BCS Championship game (Dyer was down, I will go to my GRAVE believing so). Just an absolutely brutal way to kick off the Regionals for Oregon. Hopefully they can bounce back on Saturday against Cal Poly.

As always, ‘Sco Ducks.