BATON ROUGE — Oregon eliminated Louisiana-Lafayette from the NCAA Regional at Baton Rouge with a 4-3 victory in the second game of Saturday’s action.
Oregon (36-28) advanced to play Southern Miss in the championship round of the regional. Should Southern Miss beat LSU tonight, Oregon would have to beat Southern Miss twice beginning at 1 p.m. Sunday. An LSU win Saturday night would pit the Oregon-Southern Miss winner against the Tigers at 4 p.m.
ULL ended the 2000 season at 45-15.
The Ducks opened the scoring in the bottom of the first inning when leadoff hitter Andrea Gustafson walked, advanced to second on a single by Alyssa Laux and scored on a single by Jill Robinson to take a 1-0 lead.
ULL matched the run in the top of the second, as Michele Bailon reached on a fielder’s choice, advanced to third on a ground out by Michelle Hummel and a fielder’s choice by Megan Fields. She then scored on an RBI single by Summar Lapeyrouse to tie the game at 1-1.
Oregon had its first chance to open up the game in the bottom of the third. With two outs and Lindsey Welch on first after a walk, Triawn Custer blasted a home run over the left field fence. However, Welch was called out at first by umpire Walter Ellingsworth for leaving the base early thus negating the two-run homer and ending the inning. An Oregon trainer was ejected from the game for arguing the call.
However, the Ducks took advantage of an opportunity in the bottom of the fourth. With two outs and runners on second and third after an illegal pitch by ULL relief pitcher Micah Barbato, Gustafson doubled in Andrea Vidlund and Holly Ray to take a 3-1 lead.
With two outs, Alana Addison tied the game for ULL in the top of the fifth with her 14th home run of the season, scoring Barbato.
Oregon regained the lead in the next half inning as Robinson opened the inning with a double to right, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on a hard-hit grounder by Welch which bounced off the ULL first baseman and was recovered by the second baseman, Bailon, who tagged first with her right hand for the putout.