With their backs against the wall, both coaches made a risky gamble with their starting pitching choices for the Eugene Regional championship game. For Rice head coach Wayne Graham, it paid off. For George Horton and the Ducks, the gamble was season-ending as the Ducks fell to the Owls 11-4 in the regional championship game.
Graham started his closer, Zech Lemond, who hadn’t started a game all season. Lemond did an unimaginable job considering the situation, going 6.2 innings, giving up four runs on eight hits while striking out seven and walking one.
Ironically, while Oregon waited for Lemond to get gassed, he just got better with each inning. He retired the side in both the fifth and sixth innings before giving up a lead-off hit in the seventh.
“It’s just another game,” Lemond said. “I’m going to do my job and throw strikes.”
It wasn’t until he gave up an RBI single to Tyler Baumgartner in the bottom of the seventh that he was pulled. Oddly enough, he was replaced by Austin Kubitza who was Rice’s Friday starter.
Horton looked to his All-American, Jake Reed, to keep Oregon alive. Reed, who has pitched inconsistently this season, went on short rest after throwing Friday against South Dakota State.
Reed only threw 74 pitches against SDSU, giving Horton faith that he was up to the task. He got shelled early, giving up four hits and five runs in 1.2 innings before being pulled for Christian Jones.
“We didn’t pitch very well unfortunately,” Horton said. “They were on it and they hit some balls hard. The balls they miss-hit found holes and this darn game of baseball is a difficult thing.”
Jones was worse. In just two-thirds of an inning he have up two more runs on two hits to put Oregon in a 7-3 hole.
“The spot that I brought Jones in, had he pitched in character, was a perfect spot for him,” Horton said.
Oregon finally found solace in the form of Clayton Crum. Crum, who had only pitched 11 innings all season, threw two innings, giving up a run on three hits. While it wasn’t dominating, he quieted the loud Owl bats long enough to give Oregon a chance.
Garrett Cleavinger came on in the fifth inning and dominated, allowing two hits and no runs in three and a third innings, but the run support that was pouring from the Oregon dugout just 24 hours earlier had dried up.
With nothing to lose and the fate of the season looming, Horton called upon Jimmie Sherfy in the eighth with two outs. He got Shane Hoelscher to come up empty on a swing with two strikes.
Oregon batters went down in order in the eighth, and Sherfy again took the mound in the ninth to preserve any chance of a comeback.
As Sherfy occasionally does, he gave up some hits and allowed two runners in scoring position. However, uncharacteristically, he didn’t settle down. Instead he gave up a two-run triple to Rice catcher Hunter Kopycinski with two outs, followed by an RBI double to Ford Stainback to all but bury the Ducks.
Oregon had a last-ditch effort in the ninth when Desmond Santos got on base after being plunked by Kubitza. Connor Hofmann then drilled a single to center field. Senior J.J. Altobelli took his final at-bat in a Ducks jersey, grounding out into a double-play and moving Santos to third.
The seven-run rally proved to tall a task as Aaron Payne grounded out to end the season.
The poor pitching, some sub-par defense and not enough hitting combined to be the demise of the Ducks’ 2013 season, again short of Omaha.
While the season ended not as he would have liked, Horton is proud of what he has done with this program in four short years, especially the postseason runs in the last two.
“The real strength of the 92 wins over the last two years is character,” Horton said.
After the game, like usual, Horton refused to fall into complacency.
“We’re going to go to Omaha sooner or later,” Horton said. “The names on the jerseys are going to be different but we’re going to go to Omaha, I assure you. And I’m going to be the coach.”