QuickTake:

The Ducks’ latest near-miss at the College World Series left fans disappointed, but USA-Australia has given some Oregonians a different sports pilgrimage this June.

Look, it’s been a rough couple of weeks for University of Oregon baseball fans.

First, the Ducks’ season came to an end just short of Omaha, again, against Texas in the Austin Super Regional.

Then, as college baseball’s top teams spent the week competing at the College World Series, the Ducks began to see the defections.

Angel Laya is gone. So, too, is Nauvaulou Lauaki Jr.

Oregon fans like Nathan Reid are conditioned for a level of disappointment each June, but this stretch has been particularly rough.

“It’s hard getting a five-star receiver in football and knowing that the amount of money that kid’s getting would fund pretty much the entire baseball program,” said Reid, 34, who was in the stands in Texas to see the end of Oregon’s run.

Nathan Reid in his happy place: Watching Oregon baseball.

There is one saving grace, at least for Reid: It makes travel logistics this week a little less hectic.

See, Reid is one of many Oregonians flocking to Seattle this weekend for the World Cup match between the United States and Australia. Following both teams’ Game 1 wins last week, and a fair amount of trash talk, the first USA World Cup match in the Northwest has turned into one of the region’s most anticipated sporting events, ever.

The get-in-the-door price as of Wednesday on StubHub? A cool $1,700 for seats in the upper deck.

Thankfully, Reid bought his tickets before they skyrocketed after the USA beat Paraguay 4-1 in Los Angeles.

“It really went from, ‘Hey, I’m going to the U.S. game,’ to ‘Wow! The USA could potentially win their group this week with Australia’s result,’” Reid said. “That’s basically unheard of.”

Reid and his wife will leave from Albany on Thursday and take a leisurely drive up the coast to avoid the traffic expected to hit I-5 on Friday ahead of the noon kickoff. They booked a boat tour for Friday night and will follow with the Mariners game against the Red Sox on Saturday.

The street outside of Seattle Stadium before Egypt took on Belgium in the World Cup on Monday.

Reid had to sneak some baseball in there, because that’s what he was supposed to be doing this weekend.

Had Oregon defeated Texas, Reid said the plan was to purchase a one-way ticket to Omaha, a one-way ticket to Seattle for soccer, and then another potential flight back out to Omaha had the Ducks advanced to the second weekend of the tournament.

There’s always next year — granted, the only soccer matches Reid will have to juggle with baseball in 2027 are the season tickets he’s purchased for Sporting Cascades FC, which is just a few rungs below the quality of play this weekend in Seattle.

“I told my wife, ‘I was 5 years old when the last World Cup was in the United States — I don’t want to wait around until I’m 50 or 60 for the next opportunity,’” he said. “We don’t know when the next opportunity to see this level of soccer will be.”

Tyson Alger covered the Ducks for The Oregonian and The Athletic before branching out on his own to create and run The I-5 Corridor. He brings more than a decade of experience on the University of Oregon sports beat. He has covered everything from Marcus Mariota’s Heisman Trophy-winning season to the Ducks’ first year in the Big 10.