Oral Roberts captures walk-off win over Oregon to force Game 3 at Eugene Super Regional
If you ask Oregon’s players and coaches, the opportunity to play a do-or-die game with a trip to Omaha in the line is everything they’ve been dreaming of since the season began.
After trading walk-off haymakers with Oral Roberts throughout the first two games of the Eugene Super Regional, the Ducks will get that opportunity on Sunday.
With one out and the bases loaded, Oral Roberts left fielder Justin Quinn laced a two-run double down the left field line to give the Golden Eagles an 8-7 win over Oregon at PK Park. The decisive knock came 24 hours and 31 minutes after Ducks’ shortstop Drew Cowley delivered a walk-off single of his own to capture the series-opener.
Now, after two games that were decided by a combined two runs, Oregon and Oral Roberts will meet for a 3:06 p.m. PT rubber match Sunday with a trip to the College World Series on the line.
“Some of our coaches said it — if we could go back to September 10th or 11th, our first day (of fall ball), and if you had one game to play for it all, to go to Omaha, would you take it?” Oregon senior outfielder Tanner Smith said. “I think that hit the team square in the eyes. I think we’re gonna come out as a group tomorrow and play our hearts out.”
In a game that featured five lead changes, Quinn’s walk-off hit served as the finishing touch on a gritty Golden Eagles’ comeback.
Oral Roberts ambushed Oregon starter Turner Spoljaric for three runs in the second inning and forced the Ducks to turn the game over to their bullpen early for the second night in a row. Relievers Ian Umlandt, Austin Anderson, and Matt Dallas tossed 2.0 innings apiece and held Oral Roberts to a combined three runs while the Ducks’ went to work.
Sabin Ceballos smashed a two-run homer in the fourth to tie the game at 3-3. Oral Roberts answered back with a run on Jacob Godman’s groundout to second base to re-take the lead.
But the Ducks tied to game one inning later on Cowley’s RBI single and then took a 5-4 lead on Ceballos’ double to left-center.
After that, Oral Roberts turned the game over to All-American closer Cade Denton midway through the sixth inning and asked the star right-hander to carry them the rest of the way.
“It’s not tough to give that guy the ball,” Oral Roberts coach Ryan Folmar said of the decision. “He’s one of the best in the country, so it’s not that tough to give it to him. The decision was that we were going to try to hang in there and wait as long as we could before we felt like we needed him to come in and we felt like that was the right time.”
Denton threw 63 pitches over the course of 3 1/3 innings and surrendered two runs on four hits.
Both of those runs came in the seventh when Oregon capitalized on an uncharacteristic mistake from Oral Roberts star center fielder Jonah Cox. With two outs, Drew Smith lifted a fly ball to the warning track. Cox — the Summit League Player of the Year and one of the top players in the nation — failed to make the routine catch and allowed a pair of runs to score.
“That guy, I’ve seen him drop one or two fly balls since I’ve known him; in that situation, he did everything he could to catch that ball,” Denton said of the play. “He saved a home run there, from what I could see. I’m walking off the field trusting my defense, and obviously, stuff happens. He did everything he could there.”
The Golden Eagles got a run back in the bottom of the seventh on an RBI double by Jake McMurray.
Then, one inning later, Cox bounced back in a major way by blasting a solo homer to dead-center to cut the Oregon lead to 7-6.
In the bottom of the ninth, with the Ducks three outs away from Omaha and still clinging to a one-run lead, they turned the game over to closer Josh Mollerus.
The right-hander produced a pop-up for the first out of the inning, but then surrendered back-to-back singles and walked McMurray to load the bases.
After a mound visit from Oregon pitching coach Jake Angier, Quinn stepped to the plate and ripped Mollerus’ fastball to left to win the game.
“What Josh did at the end is real simple; Oral Roberts is good,” Oregon head coach Mark Wasikowski said. “A guy stuck a 94-mile-per-hour fastball down the left field line. He did a good job. He’s a good player. They’ve got good players. They’re a good team — they won 20-something games in a row for a reason. We expected a battle.”
