Oregon baseball wins two of three in Vegas tournament
· Yahoo Sports
After winning eight straight in their first homestand of the season, the Oregon Ducks baseball team traveled down to Las Vegas to play in the Live Like Lou Classic. While they won't return home with an unblemished record, the Ducks were impressive in the desert as they managed to defeat Arizona and Vanderbilt.
It was nearly a perfect weekend, but UC-Irvine rallied late and handed Oregon its initial loss of the year on Saturday.
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Oregon got the tournament off on the right foot with a nice 7-2 win over Arizona. Jax Gimenez, Burke-Lee Mabeus and Angel Laya all homered in the victory. Tanner Bradley threw 4.1 innings out of the bullpen to earn the victory. It was Arizona's ninth loss in 10 games, a shocking start for a team that began the season as a ranked team.
In the Ducks' lone loss to UC-Irvine, they rallied from a late 3-1 deficit to take a 5-3 lead in the eighth inning. Drew Smith homered in the seventh inning to make it 3-2 Anteaters. Oregon took the lead when Dominic Hellman blasted a two-run homer for a 4-3 lead. The Ducks added an insurance run on Smith's single that scored Maddox Molony.
Unfortunately, that advantage didn't last long as the Anteaters scored five runs in the bottom of the eighth to take a big 8-5 lead. Oregon managed to score one run in the top of the ninth on a fielding error, but the Ducks couldn't plate any more, and the Ducks felt defeat for the first time this season.
Heading into Sunday's game with Vanderbilt, the big question was how Oregon would respond after a loss. The answer turned out to be good. It didn't take long for the Ducks to respond as Molony homered to left field to open the scoring up. Oregon eventually took a 6-0 lead before hanging on for a 6-4 win.
Mabeus and Hellman each homered and starting pitcher Cal Scolari earned his second win of the season. He went six innings on the mound, giving up just two hits and whiffing eight Commodore hitters. Vanderbilt rallied in the eighth inning with three home runs. Vandy took advantage of the wind blowing out to left field.
Oregon found itself up 6-4 in the ninth inning with three Vanderbilt runners on base. But reliever Devin Bell came on and got a strikeout and a pop-up to first to end the game and preserve the win.
Now the Ducks come back home to the friendly confines of PK Park for a non-conference game with Oregon State on Tuesday before they open Big Ten play with a three-game series at Purdue.
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This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: Duck baseball defeats Vandy and takes two of three games in Las Vegas