2016 was supposed to be the year the Ducks made the College World Series — at least, that’s what starting pitcher Cole Irvin guaranteed before the season began.

“We are going to Omaha this year,” Irvin said. “I want to make that statement clear.”

Instead, Oregon’s season fell wildly short of his lofty expectations. The Ducks (29-26, 14-16 Pac-12) finished ninth of 11 teams in the conference and failed to qualify for an NCAA Regional for the first time since 2011.

It was a down year for the Pac-12 in general. Four Pac-12 teams — as opposed to six last year — earned berths in the 2016 NCAA Baseball Championship, including conference champion Utah, Arizona, Arizona State and Washington. None of the five teams ranked in the preseason Top 25 — Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA, USC and Cal — qualified for the tournament.

Oregon’s starting rotation, which Manager George Horton called “potentially one of the best pitching staffs in the country” at the beginning of the season, was supposed to carry the team deep into the postseason.

“Two or three runs [per game on offense] is all we’re going to need this year, because we have the best pitching staff in the country,” Irvin said then. “The hitters know it, so the pressure is off them and on [Matt] Krook and I, and [David Peterson].”

This was not the case, either, as Irvin, Krook and Peterson posted ERAs of 3.17, 5.03 and 3.63, respectively, and a combined record of 14-12.

No pitcher fell shorter of his expectations than Krook, who was named a preseason All-American after missing all of last season to recover from Tommy John surgery. The former first round MLB draft pick’s command issues were so significant that Horton had no choice but to remove him from the starting rotation in early May. Krook walked 49 batters in 53.2 innings and pegged another 12, which will likely hurt his stock for the 2016 MLB Draft on June 9-11.

It wasn’t just Oregon’s pitching that struggled, though. The offense posted historically low numbers.

After intentionally moving away from the “small ball” approach the Ducks have employed in previous seasons, they posted the lowest team batting average in the Pac-12 (.232). They also  recorded the fewest hits per game (7.51). Phil Craig-St. Louis and Jakob Goldfarb, who seemed poised to take the reins of the offense after standout 2015 seasons, batted .169 and .217, respectively, and lost their starting jobs. Matt Kroon and Travis Moniot, who highlighted Oregon’s No. 8-ranked freshman class,  hit just .184 and .168, respectively.

An unlikely candidate, outfielder Jake Bennett, ended up leading the Ducks on offense. The junior transfer student from Western Nevada College posted team-highs in batting average (.312) and on-base percentage (.419), as well as a team-low strikeout rate (10.5 percent of plate appearances).

To almost no one’s surprise, closer Stephen Nogosek was the team’s most reliable bullpen arm. An intense competitor who carries a heavy workload, Nogosek finished with an outstanding 1.11 ERA in 40.2 innings, while striking out 45 batters and allowing just 0.96 walks plus hits per inning pitched. Nogosek is a contender for the Golden Spikes Award, given to the nation’s best amateur player, as well as National Pitcher of the Year and National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association’s Stopper of the Year.

Horton has a lot to prove entering the final year of his contract, which is one of the most expensive in college baseball, in 2017. The Ducks have failed to qualify for Super Regional since their landmark 2012 season, and their performance has regressed in each successive year. Here’s how Oregon has done in each season under Horton:

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