Trying to add a payment method? You can do this on the 
QuickTake:
The Ducks turned a five-run fourth inning into their first win of the postseason over Idaho State University on the back of Shaw’s bases-loaded home run and nine combined strikeouts from Taylour Spencer and Elise Sokolsky. Oregon will face Mississippi State University tomorrow at 2 p.m.
After three innings of no-run softball, Oregon arrived at the ultimate opportunity. Down 1-0, a Stefini Ma’ake walk, followed by Kaylynn Jones and Rylee McCoy singles, loaded the bases in the Ducks’ NCAA Regional opener against Idaho State University on Friday night. The next batter, Ayanna Shaw, worked into a 2-2 count.
Then, the dam broke.
Shaw sent the next pitch into the center field bleachers, put Jane Sanders Stadium on its feet and turned a previously-angsty postseason opener into a party. A Ducks group missing ace Lyndsey Grein to an eye infection held the Bengals to one run and pushed across five of their own in a breakaway fourth frame to seal the 5-1 win. Oregon (41-12) will face Game 2 winner Mississippi State University tomorrow at 2 p.m.
“I really liked how these guys came out tonight,” Oregon head coach Melyssa Lombardi said. “I mean, if we could have played on Tuesday, they were ready to play. These guys had just been waiting and waiting. I thought early in the game, we hit some balls really hard that just didn’t go our way, and then you could see that fourth inning, how we were able to put it together, and just pass the bat.”
Without Grein, who joined the team for introductions with a patch covering her left eye, Oregon got seven near-spotless innings from Taylour Spencer and Elise Sokolsky. After Spencer limited the first-inning damage, Sokolsky entered in the fourth and didn’t allow a hit. As she walked off with a strikeout in the sixth, she shrugged toward the dugout and saw the rest of her teammates mimic a “Gladiator” reference that’s become a theme with the Ducks.
Even as a Ducks offense that put up eight or more runs in five of its last six games entering the Regional was blanked through three innings, Spencer began to heat up. After she allowed three of her first four runners to reach and gave up an RBI single to Ava Brown, she settled in and silenced the next seven.
When the Bengals did get on base with a double and intentional walk in the top of the third, Spencer answered with an emphatic swinging strikeout of Jenna Kearns after a seven-pitch at-bat. A one-out single in the top of the fourth inning was enough for Lombardi to swap her starter for Sokolsky.
She wasn’t any better for the Bengals, as she drew a pair of outs from her two batters faced, and the Ducks’ bats backed her up in the bottom of the frame with that bases-loaded situation on a Ma’ake walk and two singles.
It wasn’t the first time a Duck had seen three Ducks from home base on Friday; an inning earlier, Bengals starter Marley Goluskin walked the bases full after a Taryn Ho popup, but Emma Cox grounded into a double play and Idaho State jogged off with its lead still intact.
This time, Ayanna Shaw delivered on the situation out of a 2-2 count with her grand slam to straightaway center field, which chased Goluskin for reliever Kasey Aguiunaga and set the Ducks up with a 4-1 lead.
“I was just trying to look for a pitch over the plate,” Shaw said. “I saw it over the plate, and I swung.”
Aguiunaga loaded the bases in turn, and a Cox sacrifice fly scored Katie Flannery to complete the five-run inning. Sokolsky, her counterpart, shrugged as she walked off half an inning later with three straight strikeouts and a shutdown to send the stadium into “Shout.” Shortly afterward, seats emptied and aisles filled with fans as two infield plays set up Sokolsky, who closed out her five-strikeout, zero-hit performance with another swing-and-miss on the final pitch.
“It’s everything,” Sokolsky said. “I’ve said it before. I would put my defense against anybody else in the country. That’s just how much I trust them, and it gives me a lot more freedom on what I need to do on the mound.”
Oregon will face Mississippi State tomorrow with a slot in Sunday’s potential decider on the line.