JB89

I wondered when USC would get smarter with their scheduling. Having a SEC powerhouse in September and then Notre Dame late in the season along with a nine game conference schedule is too difficult of a regular season for todays college football.

I am very happy for coach Lombardi and the team. To get two wins today with the bats and not superior pitching was fantastic. Earlier in the year the pitching got us the big wins over the best teams. Now the hitters came through when needed. If they follow up these two wins with a World Series berth then we may look back at this weekend as the career defining moment for coach Lombardi and her program. GO DUCKS!!!

If you go back to the start of the Indiana series, Oregon has not had a dominant pitcher. Something happened to Grein's dominance from earlier in the year. Here are Greins last 6 outings. I will list the innings pitched & earned runs given up. Indiana series G1: 4.1 & 4 G2: 2.2 & 0. G3: 1.2 & 5 MSU series G1: 1.1 & 4 G3: 2.0 & 3 BIG10 Tournament Michigan 2.1 & 3 Unfortunately OBD picked a bad time of the year to have their slump

According to the seedings the committee felt Oregon would have been the 10th best team in the SEC and the 4th best team in the ACC. Personally, I think that is BS. Oregon went 5-1 against #5 FSU (2-0), #7 Tennessee (1-0) and #9 UCLA (2-1). FSU and Tennessee couldn't even score a run against the Ducks. Oregon deserved a much higher seed.

This link has a graphic explaining how the APR rates are calculated. If I'm understanding the rules correctly it is impossible to get a perfect score of 1000 if you have any players that transfer. Even if the player is academically eligible when they transfer the school only receives 1 of 2 possible points. With the current transfer portal rules, how does any team get a perfect score? Academic Progress Rate Explained WWW.NCAA.ORG Academic Progress Rate Explained What is the APR and how is it calculated?

Big Ten Network does a fantastic job of covering the games and celebrations. They stayed around showing the players celebrating with the fans and with each other. Multiple interviews also shown. I'm happy for Coach Lombardi getting her first league title. Hopefully the first of many.

Ducks leading 9-0 in the 4th inning. 3 home runs already.

Nice win before heading home.

I enjoy the recruiting updates provided by all of you but I refuse to get too excited or disappointed this time of year. While it is preferred to keep verbal commitments we know that with Coach Lanning any great player leaving will be replaced with another great player.

Fantastic win today. Winning the series against UCLA is exactly what they needed to keep their hopes of getting a top 8 seed alive. The ability to forget about Saturday's loss and get the run rule victory today was very impressive.

Alex, thanks for the article. I agree that we do not need or want to have the ex Tennessee QB on our team. I will disagree with your comment that Moore needs to be the starter this year. The QB that needs to be the starter is the player that the coaches decide is the best to lead the team this fall. I think Novosad is in the mix to be the starting QB. I do not see practices but I thought Novosad looked like the best QB on the field in last years spring game. Whichever of the two QB's gets the starting job, I think we need to have the other QB stay with the team and not transfer. If we go into next fall with only Moore or Novosad then we will only be one injury away from not making the playoffs. I have confidence that we can make the playoffs with either player as our starting QB but we need the other player to be available if an unfortunate injury occurs.

I hate to see us drop in the polls this late in the year. I understand why it happened. The loss at home to LMU really hurt. LMU has a losing record 18-22. In early march UCLA beat them 11-1 & 12-0. LMU has been shut out in games versus Oklahoma, Utah, Cal., Long Beach State and San Diego. We also struggled to beat Minnesota in two of the three games this past weekend. Minnesota is 14-26 overall. I hate the SEC but with the addition of Oklahoma and Texas they are the top softball conference. They look like the old PAC12 when looking at the rankings. They are recruiting many of the top California players that used to stay in the PAC12. Maybe NIL is the reason for so much of the talent heading to the SEC. Since the Duck's opportunities to play against top 10 teams are limited a series win against UCLA is extremely important. That along with a strong showing in the conference tournament might be enough to get a coveted top 8 seed.

30Duck, I think you are a long time fan of the softball team as am I. I went back and looked at the 2017 roster just to refresh my aging memory. I would take the 2017 team to win the series against this 2025 team. I am very impressed with the talent that Lombardi has assemble for the 2025 team. The pitching talent has finally gotten the Ducks back to an elite level and the freshman class is unbelievably talented and productive. The 2017 team had Jenna Lilley, Nikki Udria, Shannon Rhodes, Alexis Mack, Gwen Svekis, Haley Cruse and pitcher Miranda Elish just to name a few. Those players are why I would choose the 2017 team. The Mike White era was a great time to be a Duck Softball fan. I hope Oregon can win the series against UCLA this weekend and make the title game of the Big Ten conference tournament. Unfortunately they will probably need to have that type of success to receive a top 8 seed. The non league wins over Tennessee and FSU will help in seeding but the home losses to OSU and LMU hurt just as much as those wins help. We must beat OSU tomorrow. Under Lombardi, I felt we deserved to host a regional a couple of times but we were relegated to a #2 regional seed instead. The year they sent us to Texas just to have a match up with Mike White's Texas team was very frustrating. Given the selection committees past history of over looking Coach Lombardi lead Duck teams they must continue to win because the committee will look for any reason to not give us a top 8 seed.

Ducks get the sweep. 5-4

Minnesota cuts the lead to 5-4.