NCAA Baseball News

Oral Roberts forces a Game 3 with ninth inning rally to beat Ducks

Oral Roberts forces a Game 3 with ninth inning rally to beat Ducks

Oregon was three outs away from having its ticket punched for Omaha, but Oral Roberts had other plans.

The Golden Eagles scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth off of closer Josh Mollerus to shock the Ducks 8-7 and extend the Eugene Super Regional to a deciding Game 3 Sunday afternoon at 3 pm.

The usually reliable Mollerus was quite as sharp as he was in Game 1 and ORU’s Justin Quinn lined a ball down the left field line that landed on said line to score two and win the game.

It was eerily similar to how Oregon lost the last time they hosted a Super Regional against Kent State. The Ducks also lost on a ball that landed on that very same line and it happened again.

Unlike in Game 1, this contest went back and forth. Oral Roberts led 3-1 after two innings of play, but in the fourth, Sabin Ceballos broke out of his slump with a two-run home run to left-center field to tie the game.

The Golden Eagles grabbed the lead right back in the bottom of the inning, but it could have been a lot more. They had the bases loaded and no out. but Oregon pitcher Ian Umlandt coaxed a double play to end the threat.

Oregon was the “visiting” team due to NCAA Super Regional rules and grabbed the lead for good in the top of the fifth on Drew Cowley’s run-scoring single and Ceballos’ double to left-center for the 5-4 lead.

Reliever Austin Anderson came in and held the powerful ORU offense off the board for two straight innings, allowing the Ducks time to socre some insurance runs.

Those came in the seventh off of All-American closer when Drew Smith crushed one to the wall that found its way into the glove of Jonah Cox and then out of the glove of Jonah Cox for a triple.

Up 7-4 and nine outs to go, Oral Roberts didn’t make it easy.

Single runs in the seventh and eighth made it 7-6, including a homer run from Cox that extended his 46-game hitting streak.

Now the Ducks have to somehow forget this game, move on, and win Sunday afternoon. The Golden Eagles managed to move on from blowing an 8-0 lead and now it’s the Ducks’ turn to put a major disappointment behind them.

Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Baseball | Ducks Wire…