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QuickTake:
A day after a 11-1 loss, Oregon shook off a four-run deficit to hand UCLA its first Big Ten loss of the season.
WESTWOOD — For eight innings, the Bruins — and their fans — talked.
Players jawed at Oregon’s pitching staff, a UCLA assistant and an Oregon assistant were both ejected and jeers from the stands such as, “Ask Nike for more money!” serenaded the visiting Ducks.
It was cocky from the hosts, but it was also warranted. The Bruins didn’t just come into Saturday night fresh off an 11-1 pasting of the Ducks on Friday; they arrived at Jackie Robinson Stadium with a record-tying 27-game winning streak in Big Ten play.
That’s what made the ninth so jarring.
As fog rolled into Westwood, the band stopped playing and silence fell over the crowd as disbelief set in.
UCLA’s 4-0 lead in the first inning? Gone.
UCLA’s 5-4 lead in the third inning and its 6-5 lead in the seventh? Erased.
UCLA’s winning streak? No more.
In Game 2 of this three-game series, it was No. 13 Oregon 9, No. 1 UCLA 6.
“Last night we didn’t meet our standards and it should have really hurt,” Oregon coach Mark Wasikowski said. “Tonight the standard was met. We could have mailed it in after they got ahead by four runs in the first, yet that didn’t happen. They showed a desire to compete.”
Oregon’s heart was in it on Saturday long before its execution showed up.
After allowing two runs in Friday’s first inning, the Ducks allowed four on Saturday, including a long solo blast from UCLA two-hitter Roch Cholowsky that sparked tension between the two teams after he appeared to say some words in the direction of Oregon starting pitcher Collin Clarke while rounding the bases.
Clarke and the Ducks didn’t like that.
“I think when I’m at my best it’s with emotion,” Clarke said. “And sometimes I have to redirect it the right way toward our dugout.”
With Oregon’s dugout fired up, the Ducks evened the score in the second with a Gabe Miranda RBI double followed by a three-run Naulivou Lauaki Jr. home run that pelted the batter’s eye in dead center field.
Then came the cat and mouse.
UCLA took a one-run lead in the third, which Oregon countered in the seventh when Jack Brooks scored on a Ryan Cooney fielder’s choice groundout. Brooks had reached base on a walk, stolen second and advanced to third on a balk.
“I’ve always been a smaller guy,” said the 5-foot-10, 190-pound centerfielder. “I couldn’t really hit the ball anywhere. So it was always get a single, steal a base and see what happens after that.”
Brooks’ small ball tied the game.
But it was his big swing that did the Bruins in.
After Cholowsky put the Bruins back up by a run in the bottom of the seventh with his second home run of the game, Oregon tied it in the eighth on a two-out Maddox Molony RBI double, then ran with it when Brooks came to the plate with the bases loaded and socked a bases-clearing double.
The Oregon bench, which never took a seat from the dugout railing following the game’s earlier antics, filled a suddenly silent Jackie Robinson Stadium with roars.
“We came into this game with our backs against the wall,” Brooks said. “And the only way we can get out of it is by swinging. So that’s kind of what we did all day today.”
That made Wasikowski proud.
He praised his team’s improved defensive effort, its more competitive at-bats and its ability to play with poise in a game that saw third base coach Brett Thomas ejected in the bottom of the third inning after having words with UCLA first base coach Griffin Barnes, who appeared to say something in the direction of Clarke at the end of the inning.
“It was an intense game. It should be an intense game,” Wasikowski said. “That was my challenge to the team: If you’re here for a participation trophy, congratulations, we won one last night. We participated. If you’re here for the real honor, which is winning the game, then we’re going to make some better decisions than we did a night ago, and we did tonight.”
And while the Ducks have bigger goals than winning just one game off a conference foe — they’ll go for the series win against the Bruins on Sunday at noon — they’ll admit, this one felt pretty good.
“Any win is fun but that one, I don’t want to say it meant a little more, but that’s the No. 1 team in the country that we just played,” Brooks said, “and we beat them.”
