One week into the season, No. 6 Oregon softball finds itself going up against one of the toughest teams in the nation. If last week’s opening weekend was just a warmup, the Ducks will have to be fully ready for a series versus No. 7 Louisiana-Lafayette.
“It’s going to be a tough environment,” Oregon head coach Mike White said. “Obviously, we want to try and win two out of three against them.”
Oregon opened its 2016 season by going 5-1 in last week’s Kajikawa Classic in Tempe, Arizona. The Ducks earned a pair of victories on Friday and another Saturday morning, before falling to No. 18 Kentucky in the nightcap. They rebounded with a pair of victories on Sunday to close out the tournament.
Koral Costa and Nikki Udria led Oregon on offense. Costa hit a team-high .563 (9-for-16) with three doubles and a homerun, while Udria hit .467 (7-for-15) with team-highs of three homeruns and eight RBI.
“Not that I have a pretty good understanding of what kind of hitter I am, I’m really focusing on just trying to use my legs more,” Udria said.
The Ducks routinely struggled in the early parts of the game on offense. Rarely did Oregon execute with runners on base. But come the halfway mark, the offense came to life. During the tournament, the Ducks scored a combined 15 runs within the first three innings, but exploded for 34 runs over the next four innings, including a whopping 14 runs in the sixth inning.
Cheridan Hawkins is widely regarded as one of the best pitchers in the nation, but she got off to a slow start in Arizona, amassing a 2-1 record with one save. Her one loss came against Kentucky, when she gave up five runs, including a grand slam, in three innings pitched. She rebounded from that performance with a dominant complete game one-hitter against Boston College to end the weekend.
“I definitely need to work on just bouncing back a little better and just be aggressive,” Hawkins said.
While Hawkins struggled, freshman Megan Kleist shined. Kleist went 3-0 during the tournament, throwing every day and finishing with a 1.38 ERA. Her first outing was a six inning, two-hit performance against Georgia State.
“She pitched extremely well for us,” White said. “Hopefully she can continue to do that going into this weekend.”
In order to beat Louisiana-Lafayette, Hawkins and Kleist need to become a powerful duo.
Louisiana-Lafayette is led on offense by power-hitting Lexie Elkins, who is hitting .667 (10-for-15) on the season with five home runs, two doubles and 14 RBI. Also, Haley Hayden is batting .529 (9-for-17) and four other players have hit homeruns for a team batting .410 on the season.
Alex Stewart is the ace for the Ragin Cajuns. She’s 3-0 with a .5 ERA. Stewart has thrown 14 innings and has given up one earned run with 16 strikeouts and 12 hits.
The first two games of the three-game series takes place on Friday at 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. The series wraps up on Saturday at 11 a.m. Oregon will play two more games on this road trip, facing Central Arkansas on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. and Sunday at 8 a.m.