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Oregon women’s basketball: Ducks go cold in second half, season ends with 93-85 loss to Washington

The Oregon women’s basketball team had a 46-34 lead at halftime over rival Washington and was out-shooting the Huskies by nearly 10 percent. The second half completely flipped, and the Huskies (19-13) ended Oregon’s season with a 93-85 win in the second round of the WNIT. It was also the last game for Paul Westhead as Oregon’s head coach.

“Our kids played very hard,” Westhead said. “I think we were competitive, but at the end of the day you have to make some (shots).”

The Ducks shot 41.9 percent in the first half but just 29.3 percent in the second. They also made just 2-of-15 threes, while Washington shot 50.0 percent after halftime (up from 32.4 percent in the first half).

The defense wasn’t as active in the second half, but Westhead said Washington has good players that were going to make shots regardless of the opposing defense. The inability for his team to retaliate cost it a chance to play San Diego on Wednesday, he said.

“We don’t need to shoot 60 percent to win,” Westhead said, “but you can’t shoot 20.”

The second half swing looked especially odd considering how good the Ducks looked in the first. In nearly every area, the Ducks had the advantage. The Huskies didn’t even gain a lead until seven minutes into the second half.

“They cut us up on the high-low pretty bad and we didn’t adjust quick enough,” senior guard Ariel Thomas said in her last game as a Duck. “I think it was around 10-11 minute mark (of the second half), it kinda slipped away from us.”

Thomas was one of the brightest spots for the Ducks, finishing with a team-high 24 points on 8-of-14 shooting and 6-of-6 at the free throw line.

Jillian Alleyne recorded her 29th double-double on the season, breaking the Pac-12 record previously set by Stanford’s Chiney Ogwumike. Alleyne scored 17 points on 5-of-15 shooting and grabbed 25 rebounds. The sophomore forward finished the season with 519 rebounds, becoming the fifth player in NCAA history to record 500 or more boards.

“If I could put this season in one word, I would absolutely say, ‘unbelievable,’” Alleyne said.

Freshman guard Chrishae Rowe came off the bench blazing, hitting two of her first three shots (all threes). But she could hardly find the bottom of the net after that, going 4-of-16 on field goals and 0-of-8 on threes. She needed 20 points to tie the Oregon single-season scoring record (693) but finished with 17.

One late play just about summed up Rowe’s night. With under a minute left, down 84-78, Rowe made a nice move and had a short open look at a jumper. She banked it but the ball somehow rimmed out and Washington grabbed the rebound. Rowe yelled in frustration.

Starters Katelyn Loper (5-of-16 from the field, 3-of-12 from three) and Danielle Love (0-of-8 from the field, 0-of-7 from three) also struggled mightily to score.

Kelsey Plum broke Washington’s single-season scoring record of 661 with a game-high 31 points (she had 670 this season). Plum, the sister of Oregon volleyball setter Lauren, made 6-of-13 field goals, 5-of-8 three-pointers and 14-of-16 free throws. Talia Walton and Jazmine Davis added 24 and 22 points, respectively.

Despite the disappointing loss, Westhead, Alleyne and Thomas all sounded fairly happy with how their season went and where they’re headed. Last year, those three suffered through a 4-27 season. 16-16 might not be the record they hoped for, but they said it was a big step forward. Westhead believes the program will be in good hands, even though he will be gone.

“I feel badly for our seniors,” Westhead said. “They played their hearts out, but there’s a good group of kids still here and moving forward, I think they’ll be fine.”

Follow Victor Flores on Twitter @vflores415

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Oregon baseball: San Francisco provides first test for Ducks on 10-game road trip

The Oregon baseball team hasn’t played a road game in over a month. That will change this week, as the Ducks (17-5, 5-1 Pac-12) embark on a 530 mile bus ride to San Francisco on Monday to start a 10-game road trip.

“I’m not a fan of bus rides,” Oregon catcher Shaun Chase said after Sunday’s 3-1 win over Utah. “But we have a game Tuesday and we have to get prepared for it.”

Oregon faces the San Francisco Dons (11-10, 2-4 WCC) for a two-game series starting Tuesday at 2 p.m., and Oregon head coach George Horton is expecting these two games to kick off a challenging next couple of weeks. The Ducks will get three total days off during this road trip, which also features a two-game battle against Gonzaga a week from Tuesday and weekend series against Pac-12 foes Stanford (8-10, 1-2) and Washington (16-5-1, 5-1).

“10 (games) in two weeks, that’s a pretty significant challenge,” Horton said after Sunday’s game. “That’ll have a tendency to stretch our pitching staff a little bit, the depth of our ball club.”

The Dons might not be the toughest opponent Oregon will face on this trip, but they won’t be an easy out. San Francisco went 35-24 last season and was the three seed (out of four teams) at the NCAA Regionals in Eugene last season. The Ducks beat the Dons 6-1 in the semifinal game before losing the Rice in the Regional Final.

Chase and Tyler Baumgartner starred in their victory over San Francisco on June 2, both blasting home runs and getting on base three times. Mitchell Tolman got on base twice that game and drove in two runs.

Those three will all likely see action on Tuesday and Wednesday against a starting pitching staff that has struggled this season. All five players who have started games for the Dons have earned run averages above 3.00. Only one player in that group, Grant Goodman (3.04 ERA), has an ERA under 3.95.

The starters for San Francisco against Oregon haven’t been announced yet, but Horton told reporters on Sunday that Porter Clayton (2.79 ERA, eight strikeouts, five walks in 9.2 innings pitched) and Brando Tessar (2.25 ERA, seven Ks, zero BBs in 8.0 IP) will get the Tuesday and Wednesday nods for Oregon. Horton said Clayton will be on a pitch count Tuesday in order for him to be available later in the road trip.

Both Clayton and Tessar will be making their second starts of the season but neither has seen much action in the last month. Since Feb. 25 against Portland (14 games ago), the two have combined to pitch 4.1 innings.

“I think it’s good we have a Tuesday-Wednesday series so those guys can get some work in,” Horton said. “They need some work.”

Clayton, Tessar and the Oregon bullpen will be facing a top-heavy Dons lineup. Center fielder Bradley Zimmer was rated as one of the best position players in college baseball going into the season and he’s backed that up with a remarkable first 21 games. He leads the Dons in batting average (.427), extra-base hits (12, including five home runs), slugging percentage (.697), on-base percentage (.474) and stolen bases (11 in 14 attempts).

Right fielder Derek Atkinson has also performed well this season (slash line of .349/.372/.453), but San Francisco’s offense falls off quite a bit after him.

Oregon’s lineup will face a fairly tough bullpen, but if it can feast on San Francisco’s struggling starters, it won’t need to worry about producing against the Dons relievers.

Regardless of how the Ducks perform against San Francisco, they’ll be tested the next two weeks. Horton’s thankful his players are on spring break this week but knows it will be tough for them to duplicate their undefeated road trip to start the season.

“This is gonna be a tough one,” Horton said. “The only good news is they don’t have school to deal with.”

Follow Victor Flores on Twitter @vflores415

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Oregon baseball: Scott Heineman out for year but is ‘slam dunk’ to gain extra season

Oregon baseball infielder Scott Heineman will undergo labrum surgery in April after straining his left shoulder on a swing against Loyola Marymount on Feb. 23 and re-tweaking it on March 14 against USC.

The surgery will cost Heineman his junior season, but Oregon head coach George Horton told the Emerald after Sunday’s 3-1 win over Utah that Heineman is a “slam dunk” to gain an extra year of eligibility after next season.

Heimeman has to appeal to the NCAA in order to be granted a medical hardship waiver, but that shouldn’t be a problem for the junior because he fits all of the medical hardship’s criteria.

A player can’t appear in more than 30 percent of his team’s games and be granted the waiver, but Heineman has appeared in just eight (the Ducks are scheduled to play 60 games this season, so Heineman’s appearances will make up 13.3 percent of his team’s).

A player also can’t play past the midway point of his team’s season. Heineman’s last appearance came in Oregon’s 17th game, well before the halfway mark of the season.

Heineman could decide to enter the MLB draft after next season but whatever he decides, he should be eligible for an extra year of college baseball.

Heineman’s absence will obviously hurt the Ducks — Horton said he’ll be more missed on defense than on offense — but they’ve been fairly successful without him (10-4 record). Horton also noted the strong performance of his pitching staff without Cole Irvin, who is out for the year after undergoing Tommy John surgery before the season.

“We can sit there and dwell on the fact that we could be better with Cole Irvin, but we don’t have Cole Irvin,” Horton said. “We don’t have Scott Heineman, so it’s other guys’ opportunities.”

Left fielder J.B. Bryant has been one of the players to benefit from Heineman’s absence and he’s performed well, hitting .321 with a .429 on-base percentage in 37 plate appearances. Horton also said Nick Catalano will get more opportunities as the season moves along.

Horton was adamant after Sunday’s game that his team can only move forward from Heineman’s injury. He’s sympathetic towards Heineman and Irvin but his focus is on Oregon’s remaining 48 games.

“My heart does go out to those two kids,” Horton said. “It’s unfortunate but it happens to every team around the country. It’ll test your depth a little bit and so far, it’s OK.”

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Oregon baseball: Gold, Chase come up big in 3-1 win over Utah for series sweep

Jeff Gold pitched brilliantly and Shaun Chase came off the bench for one of the biggest hits in his life to give the Oregon baseball team (17-5, 5-1 Pac-12) a 3-1 win and a series sweep of Utah (9-13, 0-6 Pac-12).

Chase pinch-hit for starting catcher Josh Graham in the bottom of the seventh inning with the score tied 1-1. In a 1-2 count with a runner on third, Chase blasted a Nick Green pitch over the left field wall to give the Ducks a 3-1 lead they’d hold for the duration of the game. It also put Gold in line for the win, his sixth in as many starts (he has a 2.04 ERA with 32 strikeouts and three walks this season).

Gold pitched eight innings, giving up two hits, one unearned run, no walks and striking out three. The Ducks pitching staff gave up just two runs the entire series and neither of them were earned.

“Goldy keeps continuing to impress us as a Sunday starter,” head coach George Horton said.

The first inning on Sunday played out eerily similar to Saturday’s. After Matt Krook hit Utah leadoff hitter Kody Davis in a 1-2 count Saturday to start the game, Jeff Gold hit him with an 0-2 fastball. Both Gold and Oregon head coach George Horton argued that Davis illegally extended his elbow to draw contact, but Davis was still rewarded the base.

“I should’ve just made a better pitch,” Gold said.

Two pitches later, Davis attempted to steal but the Ducks called a pitch-out and Graham threw him out easily. Shortly after that, Cory Hunt hit a double over J.B. Bryant’s head in left field. On the next pitch, Max Schuman struck a softly hit fly to Bryant, who attempted to make a fairly routine running catch. But Bryant dropped it, setting up a first-and-third situation with one out. The next batter Wyler Smith hit a sacrifice fly to left to give the Utes a 1-0 lead, which they’d hold until the seventh.

Gold only made one mistake that first inning (the Hunt double) and finished with 13 pitches and one unearned run allowed. After that, he looked dominant, retiring 15 straight batters and allowing three baserunners (another HBP to Davis, a HBP to Hunter Simmons, a single from Smith) the rest of the way.

Horton said he took a “straw vote” in the dugout after Gold hit Simmons with one out in the eighth, and most players and coaches expected Gold to be taken out. But when Horton visited the mound, several people persuaded him to leave Gold in. A few pitches later, Gold induced a 5-4-3 double play to end the inning.

“Fortunately, I have great teammates who lobbied for me to stay in the game,” Gold said. “Minny (third baseman Kevin Minjares) called that double play and he was like, ‘Give me one.’ He was able to clutch up and make a great play.”

The Ducks weren’t producing any offense up to that point. Utah starter Bret Helton retired the first 11 Oregon batters and held the Ducks scoreless through seven.

But the Ducks started a rally in the bottom of the seventh. Kyle Garlick led off with a single and A.J. Balta tried to bunt him over but couldn’t lay one down in play. On a 3-2 pitch, hitting coach Mark Wasikowski let Balta swing and it paid off. Balta smoked a double to right field, scoring Garlick from first to tie the game 1-1.

Bryant came up next and grounded out to second, putting Balta at third. Chase came up next, which also proved to be a good decision by Wasikowski and Jay Uhlman. Chase smoked a 1-2 fastball over the left field fence to give the Ducks a 3-1 lead. It was the first pinch-hit home run of Chase’s career.

“I knew I had to get it out of the infield to score that run, whether it be in the air, up the middle, I had to do something,” Chase said. “They threw me a fastball up in the zone, I just put a short, hard swing on it and it just happened to go out.”

Chase said he hit one game-winning home run before Sunday, a walk-off blast in high school.

“This one felt a lot better,” Chase said.

Horton doesn’t consider Utah a bad team, but he said contenders should expect to sweep the Utes, who currently dwell in the cellar of the Pac-12. Now the Ducks have two days before their next series, which is a two-game road matchup against San Francisco. Tuesday will mark the beginning of a 10-game road trip, Oregon’s first since a seven-game trip from Feb. 14-23 against Hawaii and Loyola Marymount to open the season.

“If we can match our first road trip and be undefeated, I’ll take that right now,” Horton said.

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Oregon baseball: Krook, Ducks catch several breaks in wild 4-1 win over Utah

Oregon freshman starting pitcher Matt Krook was all over the place Saturday against Utah, but he and the bullpen were able to limit the damage and come out on top, beating the Utes (9-12, 0-5 Pac-12) 4-1. Oregon baseball (16-5, 4-1) won the series, as well.

Krook said he’s been sick all week with a cold, and he, Kruger and Horton said that was partly why he struggled with his control on Saturday. The left-hander threw several pitches in the dirt, hit a couple batters and struggled getting ahead in the count, especially early on.

“It never fully came together today,” Krook said. “I don’t feel great about it but we got a win.”

In the first, Krook got ahead of leadoff hitter Kody Davis 1-2 in the count only to plunk him. Mark Karaviotis turned a 6-4-3 double play the next at-bat on a brilliant diving stop and flip to Aaron Payne. Krook promptly hit the next batter, TJ Bennett, on an 0-2 count and gave up an infield single to Wyler Smith right after that.

On the single, Karaviotis ranged to his right and made a tough throw that hit the dirt and bounced under first baseman A.J. Balta’s glove. Bennett advanced to third on the error and saw that nobody was covering home, so he rounded the bag and scored easily.

Catcher Jack Kruger was backing up the errant throw on the play, so it was Krook’s job to cover home. However, Krook was positioned between the pitcher’s mound and first base, leaving home plate empty. Both Kruger and Krook took blame for mistake.

“It was just a lack of awareness on my part,” Krook said. “I should’ve seen that coming. But good baserunning on (Bennett’s) part.”

The Utah lead didn’t last long. Aaron Payne led off the first inning with a double and moved to third on an Austin Grebeck sacrifice bunt. Tyler Baumgartner came up and scorched a triple to right-center to bring home Payne. Mitchell Tolman drove in Baumgartner with a sacrifice fly the next at-bat.

The oddities continued in the second inning. Krook gave up a double and a single to start the inning, giving Utah runners on first and third with no outs. On the pitch directly after the single, Biss Larsen swung and missed on a fastball but Kruger was expecting a breaking ball (Kruger said he gave the wrong sign). The ball flew to the backstop, causing both runners to take off. But the ball bounced right back to Kruger, who easily tagged Konnor Armijo at home plate.

“That was my fault,” Kruger said. “We caught a break right there.”

Krook would escape the inning unscathed and would settle down after that, pitching three more innings while allowing three Utes to reach base. Horton said Krook was a little frustrated he was taken out after five.

“He’d been sick, I thought that was a good day’s work,” Horton said. “I’m glad it didn’t backfire on us.”

Another odd play happened in the top of the fourth. Utah’s Max Schuman hit a single and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt. A couple of pitches later, Krook threw a breaking ball way out in front of the plate that Kruger blocked. However, the ball bounced off Kruger far back into the field of play near the pitcher’s mound. Schuman took off when the ball bounced off Kruger but Krook got to it right away and threw Schuman out by plenty at third base.

“I’ve played a lot of baseball and I’ve never, ever seen that,” said Kruger, who didn’t know where the ball was after it ricocheted off him.

The Ducks tacked on a couple more runs in the bottom of the seventh to provide some insurance for their bullpen, which pitched four hitless innings to preserve the lead.

“If I’ve got a lead, it’s going to stay,” Krook said. “Right now, our bullpen’s dominant.”

Krook got the win, striking out six and giving up five hits, two walks and one run (unearned). Jake Reed earned his fifth save of the season. Oregon will go for the sweep of the Utes tomorrow at 11 a.m.

“Once you extend (the lead) with our bullpen, that’s the dagger,” Horton said. “I commend my guys that we continue to get zeroes in the seventh, eighth and ninth and continue to get runs.”

Noteworthy:

– Reed pitched back-to-back games (and earned back-to-back saves) for the second time this season and the first time in a month (Feb. 22-23). Reed said he typically feels a little stiff after his outings and isn’t sure how he’ll feel going into tomorrow’s game. “We’ll see what Coach Horton decides, but I feel like I’d be ready,” Reed said.

– Oregon infielder Scott Heineman will undergo surgery on his left shoulder, which he strained on Feb. 23 against Loyola Marymount, and miss the rest of the season. The news was first reported on Friday. The junior infielder made one appearance (on March 14 against USC) after the initial injury but re-tweaked his shoulder on a swing against USC. Heineman was rated as the 26th-best college prospect in the country before the season by Baseball America.

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Oregon baseball: Ducks win 1-0 thanks to crucial late mistake from Utah

Starting pitcher Mitch Watrous was dealing all night for the Utah baseball team (9-11, 04 Pac-12), but one mistake in the bottom of the eighth inning cost his team a chance at beating Oregon (15-5, 3-1).

With two outs and runners at first and second, Watrous threw a wild pitch that bounced towards the Utah dugout. The runner on second, Nick Catalano, was waved home. The throw to home beat Catalano, but catcher Konnor Armijo couldn’t corral it, so the Ducks took a 1-0 lead that they’d maintain for their first victory in the three-game series versus the Utes this weekend at PK Park.

“It was obviously a pitchers’ duel, Friday night, Pac-12 deal, and we killed them 1-0,” Oregon head coach George Horton said after the game.

The game flew by in two hours and one minute (the shortest of the season for Oregon) thanks to stellar performances from Watrous and Oregon starting pitcher Tommy Thorpe.

Thorpe threw eight innings on Friday night, giving up three hits and no walks while striking out five. He also retired the first 14 Utah batters until Wyler Smith came up to the plate with two outs in the fifth. Smith laid down a bunt that rolled down the third base line. For a second, the ball looked like it would scoot foul, but it changed course and stayed in play.

“A little bit of me was like, ‘Oh, there goes the no-hitter or possibly even the perfect game,’” Thorpe said. “But then again, that’s not going to happen very often, so I’ve got to take it and roll with it.”

Bunting to break up a perfect game and/or no-hitter is considered breaking an unwritten rule in many baseball circles, but none of the Oregon players nor head coach George Horton expressed anger towards Smith for bunting in that situation, especially because it was only the fifth inning.

“I would not be offended if a team bunted if I had a guy throwing a no-hitter in the eighth and ninth inning,” Horton said. “It’s part of the game, especially in a 0-0 game.”

Tyler Baumgartner drove a deep double to left in the first inning for Oregon’s first hit, but Watrous shut the Ducks down thereafter. He retired the next 11 Oregon batters and even the hit to end that streak was a softly hit groundball from J.B. Bryant that shortstop Cory Hunt couldn’t handle.

“His stuff was tremendous,” Oregon catcher Shaun Chase said of Watrous. “His slider was never a consistent speed, he flipped in a curveball once in a while and he had a good changeup.”

Watrous gave up two hits after Bryant’s, but the last one proved costly.

Chase smoked a line drive past third baseman Biss Larson with one out in the bottom of the eighth. Catalano pinch-ran for Chase and stole second on a botched hit-and-run with pinch-hitter Steven Packard. Packard walked shortly after, but the next batter Aaron Payne struck out to make it two outs with runners on first and second. Watrous threw his fateful wild pitch the next at-bat with Austin Grebeck in the batter’s box. Catalano said he wasn’t planning on going home until he saw the sign from third base coach Jay Uhlman to keep running.

“I saw coach Uhlman wheeling me in because he had a better angle,” Catalano said. “So, I decided to just go for it and trust him.”

When asked if he would’ve also scored from second on the wild pitch, Chase immediately said, “No.”

“I’m glad I got pinch-run for,” Chase said.

This is the second time this season Catalano has scored a game-winning run from second on a wild pitch. During the first game of the season on Feb. 14 at Hawaii, Catalano walked with two outs in the top of ninth inning and moved to second on a walk to A.J. Balta. Hawaii’s Jordan DuPont got Scott Heineman to strike out swinging but catcher Trevor Podratz couldn’t control the pitch. The ball rolled to the backstop, allowing Heineman to safely get to first and Catalano to race in to score from second, putting the Ducks up 3-2.

Jake Reed, like he did on Feb. 14, came in for the ninth. Reed replaced Thorpe, who Horton said wasn’t going to pitch in the ninth regardless of how the eighth played out.

“The fact that we scored a run on a wild pitch, I think the game rewarded him for how well he pitched,” Horton said.

Reed pitched a 1-2-3 inning to preserve Thorpe’s third win of the year.

“He had command of all four of his pitches,” Chase said of Thorpe. “I think the better pitcher won tonight.”

The Ducks and Utes will play the second game of their three-game series tomorrow at 2 p.m.

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Oregon women’s basketball: Ducks crush Pacific 90-63, advance to second round of WNIT

Thanks to an early 22-0 run and one of the best defensive efforts of the season, the Oregon women’s basketball team (16-15) cruised to an 90-63 win over the Pacific Tigers (18-13) in the first round of the WNIT.

The Ducks looked sluggish at the start, trailing 6-3 while making just one of their first seven shots. Oregon head coach Paul Westhead then brought in leading-scorer Chrishae Rowe off the bench, and her energy appeared to turn the entire game around. She made a jumper moments after she checked in and knocked down two free throws the following Oregon possession to tie the game. Her scoring sparked a 22-0 run that essentially put the game out of reach (the smallest Oregon lead the rest of the game was 10 points).

“I think both teams were trying to figure it out,” Westhead said, referring to each team’s motivation going in. “Chrishae Rowe came in and said, ‘I’ll figure it out for you.’”

While players like Rowe (16 points, 13 rebounds) and Ariel Thomas (tied with Katelyn Loper for a game-high 20 points) were huge on offense, Oregon defense shined the brightest Thursday night. Pacific’s 63 points is the second-lowest Oregon has allowed this season, trailing only the 61 it gave up to Cal State Northridge on Dec. 29. The Tigers’ 27.6 field goal percentage on Thursday is the lowest Oregon has given up all season.

Oregon head coach Paul Westhead said he had no idea where the defensive effort came from and he wouldn’t take credit for it.

“But we scored 90 points,” Westhead said, “so I’ll take some credit for that.”

Westhead added that he and his coaching staff knew Pacific liked to drive to the hoop, so they used a zone most of the game to try to neutralize them.

Thomas said her team’s heart was one of the biggest reasons it stifled Pacific’s offense, and Alleyne said Oregon’s practices since its early exit from the Pac-12 tournament have probably been “the most competitive practices I’ve been in this whole year.”

Pacific guard Kiki Moore, who came into the game averaging 16.5 points per game on 40.5 percent shooting, was cold all game. She made five of her 23 shots (21.7 percent), one of her nine attempted threes and 2-of-8 free throws.

“Our coaches did a really good job on (Moore’s) scouting report,” Oregon forward Jillian Alleyne said. “They pretty much told us everything she did and we counteracted.”

Hailie Eackles and Madison Parrish shot even worse, going 3-of-15 (20 percent) and 0-of-10, respectively.

The Ducks also recorded more rebounds (65) than Pacific did points. The rebound total was the third-highest in a game for the Ducks this season.

Alleyne recorded a game-high 18 rebounds en route to her 28th double-double of the season (she 14 points on 6-of-13 shooting). Westhead said Alleyne’s performance was just “OK.”.

“Jillian OK is better than most,” Westhead said.

Katelyn Loper had a rough start for the Ducks, missing her first 10 three-pointers with just as many struggles from other spots on the floor. But she caught fire midway through the second half, hitting three straight threes to turn a fairly close game (50-38) into a rout.

“Finally she made some shots,” Thomas said. “K-Lope is a great shooter, I think she sometimes just gets in her head. It was good to her knock some shots down for herself because we already know that’s K-Lope.”

Kendall Kenyon was one of the few bright spots for Pacific, leading her team with 14 points on 4-of-8 shooting.

Westhead said the team’s goal before the season was 16 wins. The Ducks might have reached that mark, but that accomplishment comes with a caveat.

“The Navy Seals always say, pick your goal and then put ‘plus-one,’” Westhead said. “It’s 16 wins, plus one, so we’re not quite there.”

The Ducks will face the winner of Friday’s Washington-Hawaii game. The date and location for Oregon’s next game won’t be decided until after the Huskies and Rainbow Wahine finish their game. Oregon will play sometime between Saturday and Tuesday, likely at Matthew Knight Arena.

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Mark Helfrich confirms wide reciever Eric Dungy will explore option to transfer from Oregon

Oregon head football coach Mark Helfrich confirmed this afternooon that Dungy will explore the option of transferring from Oregon.

“We will continue to support Eric in pursuit of his college football dreams,” Helfrich said. “He will always be a member of the University of Oregon family. We wish him well.”

ESPN reported earlier in the day that Dungy is expected to transfer to South Florida in his hometown of Tampa, Fla.

Dungy is set to graduate from Oregon this upcoming spring, which would allow the redshirt senior to enroll at another school and play this fall.

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Oregon wide receiver Eric Dungy transferring to South Florida, sources tell ESPN

Oregon wide receiver Eric Dungy will likely transfer to the South Florida, sources told ESPN. The announcement has not been made official by the UO athletic department yet.

According to reports, Dungy and his father — former NFL head coach Tony Dungy — visited USF on Wednesday. The university is located in Dungy’s hometown of Tampa, Fla.

Since Dungy is scheduled to graduate in four years from Oregon, the wide receiver is allowed to transfer and play for another school this upcoming fall. Dungy is going into his final year of eligibility as a redshirt senior.

Dungy has played in 20 games for the Ducks in his career, including three last season. Dungy has seven receptions for 75 yards and a touchdown during his Oregon career. In 2012 he earned an all-Pac-12 academic honorable mention.

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Raw video: George Horton on Scott Heineman’s injury and the Pac-12

Before Wednesday’s practice, Oregon head baseball coach George Horton spoke to the media. First, he discussed Scott Heineman’s injury status. The junior third baseman has been in and out of the lineup this season and re-tweaked his left shoulder on Friday against USC. Horton also discussed Oregon’s upcoming opponent, Utah, and his expectations for Pac-12 play.

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