Regionals At Hand For UO Baseball

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — On Wednesday, Vanderbilt announced a set of future upgrades to the university's baseball stadium, Hawkins Field, but already the home of the Commodores was looking a little different as of Thursday.

The Oregon baseball team got its first look Thursday at the site of its NCAA Regional, in which the Ducks will begin play against Xavier on Friday (10 a.m. PT, ESPN+). As Oregon practiced Thursday at Hawkins Field, it did so with familiar blue signage of the NCAA hanging around the stadium and being displayed on the video board, denoting the site of a championship event.

"I told a few guys, like, take five or 10 seconds, look at everything, take it in," said UO senior infielder Gavin Grant, who is making his third regional appearance with the Ducks. "And then, all right, it's a baseball field. You've got 90 feet between the bases, three bases plus home plate, a pitcher's mound — same thing you've been playing on."

The Ducks came streaking into Nashville having won six straight games, including four straight to claim the Pac-12 Tournament title a week ago in Scottsdale, Ariz. Oregon's confidence was buoyed by that result, but the Ducks also know a specific mentality put them in position to win the conference tournament.

They hope it shows up again this weekend.

"I think it's something that the whole team is bought into; we've been talking about it, preaching it and it's been working good," senior infielder Drew Cowley said. "Everybody's been coming together on that. So you just keep going with it."

The Ducks practiced Thursday at Hawkins Field for 75 minutes, the time allotted each participating team in the regional to get acclimated to the stadium. UO coach Mark Wasikowski hit fly balls off the outfield fences so players could judge the speed and angles of balls hitting off various points of the wall, while infielders like Grant and Cowley got familiar with the speed of the turf infield.

"Basically a practice like this is just trying to put us in the most game-like situations as possible," senior outfielder Tanner Smith said. "There's quirks to any yard, so this practice was just getting our feet wet and getting ready for tomorrow."

As Grant reiterated: "Once you take everything in, it's just playing baseball."

Cowley suited up for practice Thursday freshly anointed as a Collegiate Baseball third-team all-American. As practice progressed, he showed off the skills and work ethic that made such an honor possible, making several plays in the field that had teammates shouting his name.

"It's awesome to get that, but at the end of the day we just want to win," Cowley said. "If I helped the team win, that's really all that matters. Obviously, yeah, it's a cool thing. But we came here to win."

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— Oregon Duck Baseball (@OregonBaseball) June 1, 2023

Just as Cowley appreciated his accomplishment while focusing on the upcoming task at hand, so too are the Ducks as a whole looking to put last week's success at the Pac-12 Tournament behind them, and refocusing on regionals — with the goal of making it to the College World Series.

"We're still playing with that chip on our shoulder," Smith said. "We understand that we're only five wins from a place we've never been to. So I think we're hungrier than ever."

University of Oregon Athletics

Players Mentioned

Drew Cowley

Gavin Grant

Tanner Smith

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