Just as the Longhorns did<\/a>, the Ducks swept three straight games in the Eugene Regional and gave up a paltry four runs in total. The equally stingy Horns pitching surrendered seven.<\/p>\nDon\u2019t look for the Ducks, who have nver played Texas, to be intimidated in any way. Oregon doesn\u2019t do fear.<\/p>\n
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The Ducks were eliminated by Schlossnagle\u2019s Aggies two years ago in the College Station super regional but that experience, plus games in a tournament hosted by Nebraska, have better prepared them for the hostile crowds they\u2019ll see at Disch-Falk Field.<\/p>\n
\u201cTexas crowds are awesome. We know how good baseball is down here in Texas,\u201d Wasikowski said Friday after a workout at Disch-Falk under dark skies. \u201cAnd we know how good of a job Jim does. It\u2019s a stout-looking group.\u201d<\/p>\n
For instance, Oregon sophomore right-handed pitcher Will Sanford was named the MVP for the Eugene Regional after striking out a career-best 14 Washington State batters and giving up one hit in 6\u2153 innings.<\/p>\n
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And he\u2019s not even presumed to be the Ducks starter in Saturday\u2019s opener. Cal Scolari figures to get that honor. The 6-4, 220-pound sophomore right-hander is part of a staff whose starters allowed one run in 16\u2154 innings of the regional.<\/p>\n
While bragging on Oregon pitching, Schlossnagle didn\u2019t want to oversell the Ducks staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re really good. We have tremendous respect for their pitching staff, but at the same time, we also play in the best league in the country,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd no disrespect to Oregon, but we\u2019re going to see really good pitching this weekend, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be significantly better than any pitcher we\u2019ve seen this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, Texas\u2019 Dylan Volantis isn\u2019t exactly chopped liver. The sophomore lefty is a finalist for national Pitcher of the Year, having struck out 116 and walked only 23 in 83\u2153 innings while posting a 1.94 ERA and holding opposing batters a meek .181 average. The Ducks recruited the 6-6 sophomore out of Thousand Oaks, Calif., but were politely told no after visiting a UO camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he said no to us pretty quickly,\u201d Wasikowski said. \u201cWe would have loved to have gotten in the mix with a kid as good as him. I mean, he\u2019s got size, he\u2019s got angle to his fastball, he throws a curveball, cutter and a change. It\u2019s hard to beat him. Very few people have been able to get to him. His breaking ball is an above-average pitch on a major-league scale. His breaking ball is maybe the best in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schlossnagle raves about the Ducks\u2019 bullpen to support a staff that ranks second in the nation with nine shutouts.<\/p>\n
These two clubs are also similar in that they bring a lot of power to the plate with eerily similar big guys in the order. The Ducks have eight players with eight or more home runs this season, led by third baseman Drew Smith and his 15. Their 104 homers are just 11 shy of the school record of 115 that left the park last season.<\/p>\n
Texas\u2019 lineup sports just four starters with 11 or more home runs, but Aiden Robbins, Carson Tinney and Anthony Pack Jr. are the top are as solid a trio as there is in college baseball with 55 homers and 170 RBI of production.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a pretty physical team,\u201d Scolari said. \u201cThey have a lot of guys with 20-plus homers, so you don\u2019t stumble upon that all the time on the West Coast.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pack, too, drew interest from Wasikowski, who loves the game of the SEC Freshman of the Year from Lakewood, Calif. Oregon traditionally recruits from its natural footprint on the West Coast, but failed to land one of the best Longhorn rookies the school has ever had.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s obviously a tremendously skilled player,\u201d Wasikowski said. \u201cHe\u2019s going to be one heck of a major leaguer if Lord willing he stays healthy because he\u2019s just that kind of a player. He\u2019s gifted. We wanted him bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked why he didn\u2019t choose Oregon, Pack said. \u201cI committed to Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schlossnagle has been extremely complimentary of both Wasikowski and his UO program, which was disbanded for 27 years until being reinstated for the 2009 season.<\/p>\n
Wasikowski has steadily built Oregon into a big-time contender, having reached the super regional round three of the last four years.<\/p>\n
He won a national championship as a player in 1992 as a third baseman at Pepperdine and both played for and coached under the respected Andy Lopez at Florida and Arizona before getting his first head coaching job at Purdue and being hired at Oregon. In his six full seasons in Eugene, discounting the COVID-abbreviated season, the Ducks have averaged 40 wins a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks like an SEC team, but they\u2019ll play whatever brand of baseball they need to play to win the game,\u201d Schlossnagle said. \u201cJust when you think you can be focused on their short game, then the guy can hit the ball out of the ballpark, which is the exact same kind of baseball we try to play. That\u2019s what the best teams look like.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cal Scolari is expected to get the start against Texas in Game 1 of the NCAA super regional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-325471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}