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Bulldogs pitcher Alyssa Faircloth no-hit the Ducks to put Oregon in a must-win situation on Saturday night. The Ducks put just one runner on base and gave up a game-winning home run in the first inning. Oregon will face the winner of today’s Idaho State-Saint Mary’s game at 7 p.m. in an elimination matchup.
This story has been updated to include comments from Bulldogs pitcher Alyssa Faircloth.
When Amari Harper, Oregon softball’s second batter in its Saturday NCAA Regional battle with Mississippi State University, walked on five balls in the first inning, it could have been the spark the Ducks needed.
The Bulldogs had scored a pair of runs in the top of the frame off Gretta Grassel’s first career home run, but starter Elise Sokolsky was fresh off 3.2 no-hit innings the night before and worked out of the jam.
Harper reached base on a five-pitch walk from Bulldogs starter Alyssa Faircloth.
A Duck never touched first base again.
Oregon (41-13) was no-hit for the first time since 2023 in a 4-0 loss to Mississippi State Saturday, May 16 as Faircloth retired the last 20 batters she faced.
Game 1 reliever Sokolsky was chased in the third inning, and Maddie Milhorn mostly limited the Bulldogs’ bats after that, giving up two runs — but the freshman reliever got no help as the Oregon offense went hitless on the afternoon with just one baserunner.
The Ducks will face the winner of this afternoon’s Idaho State-Saint Mary’s matchup in an elimination game at 7 p.m. Saturday.
Hours after throwing 3.2 innings of her own no-hit ball on Friday night, Sokolsky started Saturday with a four-pitch walk and a 2-0 count to Grassel.
Grassel turned on Sokolsky’s eighth pitch of the afternoon and delivered her long ball into the same center field bleachers where Ayanna Shaw’s Game 1 grand slam landed in the day before.
A combination of the defense that Sokolsky said last night she’d put against “anybody else in the country” and two strikeouts got the pitcher out of the first frame without further damage.
That defense backed her up through the first 2.2 innings; third baseman Katie Flannery made plays on two ground balls to end the second and flashed leather on a one-hop grounder in the third to set up a potential inning-ending at-bat.
But Sokolsky gave up her second double of the inning, scoring Morgan Stiles from third base in a sequence that saw the starter hooked for Milhorn.
The reliever, though, put a Bulldog on first base immediately with a single and couldn’t stifle pinch-runner Tatum Silva. A Paige Ernstes single plated Silva, who had advanced to third base on a wild pitch and a ground ball.
Oregon went seven full innings without a hit against Faircloth, the 2026 SEC Newcomer of the Year who posted a 13-7 record and 2.51 ERA before Saturday and transferred from Troy University. Flannery and Stefini Ma’ake put shots onto the warning track, but Faircloth outbattled the Oregon lineup over and over.
The Ducks were last no-hit in a May 2023 loss to Utah.
Elon Butler, the Ducks’ top hitter, worked into a two-out, 2-2 count that put Jane Sanders Stadium on its feet in the bottom of the sixth inning, but struck out swinging to seat the fans again. After Milhorn blanked the Bulldogs in the top of the seventh, Harper and Ma’ake both swung through strike-three pitches and Cox put a last-ditch fly ball into center field.
It landed in Kinley Keller’s glove.
“I knew Kinley had it,” Faircloth said after the game. “If it was in the yard, she was going to get it. It was just trust in her, trust in my defense, those couple of things. There really wasn’t any thought. I was just happy that she caught it.”
Faircloth said she wasn’t fazed by playing against the Ducks on their home field.
“We’ve played in intense [environments] on the road all year,” she said. “So I feel like I was used to it at that point, and I had my brain turned off from the start. So that’s when I perform my best, when I’m not thinking, and just trusting myself, and I think that’s what I was doing.”
Added Mississippi State head coach Samantha Ricketts: “It’s never easy to throw a postseason no-hitter, especially against a quality team like Oregon. And I love the effort, the confidence that she went out there with, the defense behind her, and just knowing that they all had each others’ backs. They were just playing together, trying to keep it loose and have some fun, because we know that’s when we’re really going to be confident, go out there and play our best softball.”