Down 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh to the visiting Washington Huskies, Oregon softball first baseman Kailee Cuico drilled a deep fly ball 25-feet from the foul pole in left field for her second strike of the at bat.
Softball play-by-play voice and current KWVA sports director Ryan Rouillard made an unintentional prediction from the press box at Howe Field.
“Boy if that one’s fair, this game is over,” Rouillard said live on the radio.
On the next pitch, Cuico sent a Bryana Walker pitch to deep center for a walk-off 4-3 win and a sweep of No. 5 Washington. At the time, Rouillard and his color commentary partner Joey McMurry delivered in the moment, an emotion-driven walk-off call for the game.
“Ryan’s call of the walk-off was perfect,” said McMurry, now a sports broadcaster with the Oregon IMG Network. “It was really good. He and I, I think in the game especially, had great chemistry. We generally do have good chemistry and in that game in particular we had great chemistry.”
Seven months later, the commentating duo was rewarded for its two-inning broadcasting performance.
This past Saturday, Rouillard and McMurray, representing KWVA’s sports department, took home the best sports play-by-play broadcasting at the 2014 National Student Production Awards, part of the 2014 College Broadcasters, Inc. National Student Electronic Media Convention in Seattle, Washington.
“On a personal level it is great,” Rouillard said. “It’s fun to see your work admired and respected, especially to be ale to win it along with one of my closest friends and mentors in Joey, that really made it all the more sweeter.”
The CBI convention usually takes place on the east coast. However, this year, since it was on the west coast, KWVA general manager Charlotte Nisser decided to enter specific clips into the contest.
“This one is really the biggest one on the east coast and they’ve never really done a convention out here, which is why we even applied,” McMurry said. “So our general manager just said ‘why not? Just go for it.’”
Growing up, Rouillard knew he always wanted to be a sports broadcaster. He used to listen to the late Mariners broadcaster Dave Niehaus make his trademark “fly away” call on home runs. For Cuico’s home run, Rouillard decided to stray away from a formalized home run call and rely on the emotion of the moment.
“You can’t really script your call,” Rouillard said. “I’ve always been a believer that there is no such thing as a home run call. Every call is different and that one was certainly fun. It was kind of a let it go, in the moment type of thing.”
The sports department also finished as a finalist in several other categories. Rouillard hopes that the award is a testament to the department’s growth over the past few years.
“These are some of the best college radio stations in the nation that are applying,” Rouillard said. “So for us, one of our goals has always been to continually expand, continually grow and that at the same time we want to become one of those top college sports departments in the country. I think this weekend was a big step forward for us.”
Follow Joseph Hoyt on Twitter @JoeJHoyt