Oregon Ducks Softball: 2026 Eugene Regionals Preview

Idaho State has been led by their great batting, with seven of the ten most regular at the plate recording an OPS of .998 or better. The top two, Sydney Groves and Kira Day, are hitting very impressively over 1.22 OPS, and combine for 31 home runs on the year. There is quite a falloff to the other three in the lineup, however, with OPS numbers around .700.

The Bengals have used a rotation of two main pitchers, with pretty sparing relief from the rest of the bullpen. There’s significant separation between those two as well, with Marley Goluskin coming in at a 2.54 ERA / 1.31 WHIP while Kasey Aguinaga is at 3.44 ERA / 1.48 WHIP (and a major separation in hit by pitch numbers which further distorts the averages, more than double for Aguinaga). Given the importance of the first game in the double elimination format, I expect Goluskin to get the start against Oregon.

These teams faced off on February 20th in Jane Sanders, an unexpectedly tight game in which Oregon repeatedly struggled to hit Goluskin with runners in scoring position to break the game open and the Bengals forced extra innings tied 3-3, and the Ducks won using overtime rules which granted them a free runner on 2nd base to start the frame and an Elon Butler double.

Idaho State did all of their scoring on the routine Lyndsey Grein out-of-the-blue home run, then some trouble that Elise Sokolsky got into that Maddie Milhorn couldn’t escape clean out of, but otherwise had a hard time putting runners on base in the first place, with 14 batters struck out.

Oregon getting Sokolsky and her confidence back for this game is crucial, so they can reserve Grein for the all-important winner’s bracket game on Saturday. Going up 2-0 so they can have the remainder of the day to rest, while the 1-1 team has to play another game that day just to stay alive, is such a commanding advantage that the entire strategy has to revolve around reserving all feasible resources for Saturday.

That is – the bats need to show up early for run support and allow Sokolsky to perhaps pitch a complete game, or if she needs relief for it to come from Taylour Spencer or Maddie Milhorn, and allow Grein to keep clean.

Analysis below indicates the other side of the bracket should have more of a dogfight, so if the best pitcher in the regionals comes out of Friday unscathed, the Ducks will have a clear path to the supers.

St. Mary’s Gaels

• Eugene Regional 3-seed
• Opening game vs Mississippi State, Friday May 15, 4:30pm PT ESPN+
• 40-14 overall, 15-3 conference (WCC)
• 59th RPI
• 66th DSR

The Gaels have the ability to punch well above their weight class, with some of the biggest upsets in DSR this season – over 40 ranks worth of difference in defeating Stanford and Washington (twice!). They also put a real scare in South Carolina, leading until a 7th-inning Gamecocks rally, and amusingly swept Oregon State.

St. Mary’s batting is hot and cold. They have eight regular batters, and then a highly unusual long tail of eight more who have large partial shares on the season. Of those entire 16, only ten are even above a mediocre .700 in OPS, six of those above .800.

But at the top end three batters hit very well, above 1.000 OPS, with all-conference honoree Sam Buckley at 1.283.

The ace pitcher is Odhi Vasquez, another all-conference honoree, with an excellent 2.36 ERA / 1.23 WHIP, and who pitches the plurality of innings. Her statistical profile looks like a heater, over 1 strikeout per inning, but also a very high walk and hit by pitch rate.

The next two pitchers, Madeline Haun and Ella Thurman, post very similar and fairly average numbers, each about 4.3 ERA and 1.4 WHIP with much lower SO and BB/HBP rates, but there’s an interesting reliever in Mia Nishikawa who’s only been in for about 15% of innings but has the second best ERA at 3.32 and a much better strikeout rate than Haun and Thurman.

I would expect the Gaels to go all-out to beat Mississippi State in the opening game, using their ace and perhaps their reliever, the best mix of their lineup against the Bulldogs’ pitching for a rightie/leftie matchup advantage if they can get one, and try to get the upset. They’ve proven they can do so against multiple teams with comparable DSR rankings.

Mississippi State Bulldogs

• Eugene Regional 2-seed
• Opening game vs St. Mary’s, Friday May 15, 4:30pm PT ESPN+
• 38-18 overall, 9-15 conference (SEC)
• 19th RPI
• 19th DSR

The Bulldogs bravely vanquished Georgia Southern (113th), Memphis (193rd), Murray State (101st), Northwestern State (188th), Southern Miss (74th), UT-Martin (184th), and Wofford (131st) once apiece, got double helpings against Delaware State twice (253rd), North Texas twice (94th), Samford twice (99th), Southeast Missouri twice (199th) and UAB twice (145th), then for good measure beat New Mexico three times (108th). They also only lost 15 SEC games of the 24 they played, which was good for two series wins out of eight. I’m surprised they’re not a super regionals host.

Miss St has one superb batter out of the dozen in their regular lineup rotation: Kiarra Sells, with an OPS of 1.213. She combines the team leading slugging percentage (.724) with by far the best eye on the team as she’s the only one with substantially more walks (35) than strikeouts (27). The next most standout hitter is Nadia Barbary, with a .999 OPS; she has comparable scoring power to Sells with nearly the same home runs and extra base hits, and actually a few more hits and RBIs, but her strikeout rate is much higher and walk rate much lower.

The rest of the lineup has mediocre to poor OPS numbers, with as many in the .800s as in the .600s. Even if we’re to grade on a curve for ostensibly ace pitching from the SEC, the litany of paycheck games they’ve played should have balanced that out.

The bullpen has a pretty strict two-pitcher rotation: Peja Goold and Alyssa Faircloth. Very similar and excellent topline numbers for both at 2.12 ERA / .96 WHIP for Goold and 2.51 / 1.00 WHIP for Faircloth. Diving a little deeper, Goold has a more steady SO:BB ratio and tends to induce pop outs, while Faircloth is the heater with almost 40% more strikeouts than her partner but about 30% more walks / wild pitches as well.

If, as I expect, St. Mary’s is giving Miss St all they can handle in the opening game, then the best strategy might be for the Bulldogs to start with Faircloth to try and nail the small number of big producers in the Gaels’ lineup, and save Goold’s smothering approach for Oregon’s deep lineup in the Saturday game.