USC cooks Oregon, reaches Pac-12 Baseball Tournament semis
In the 2024 Pac-12 Baseball Tournament, the USC Trojans, the fourth seed, achieved an impressive eighth consecutive victory this season. USC defeated the 2023 Pac-12 Tournament winner, the Oregon Ducks.
In the starting role, junior pitcher William Watson allowed only one run over his six innings of work. The game was a pitcher’s duel as Watson and Oregon pitcher RJ Gordon kept the contest scoreless through five innings. USC scratched out a few runs to take the lead. In the ninth inning, Josh Blum closed out the game for USC, blanking Oregon to earn his ninth save and secure the 4-2 victory for the Trojans over the Ducks. This triumph secured USC’s spot in the semifinals, where they will face sixth-seeded Cal at 2:30 p.m. Pacific time on Friday.
The Trojans have to take care of business if they want a shot at the NCAA Tournament. If they can beat Cal, they will sit back and watch Friday’s second semifinal between the top-seeded Arizona Wildcats and the eighth-seeded Stanford Cardinal, scheduled for 7:00 p.m. Pacific time.
While USC ended the regular season with a remarkable six-game winning streak, the Trojans’ fluctuating performance throughout most of the season eliminated their chance of receiving an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. As a result, their hopes of extending their season and qualifying for the tournament rest on winning the next two games and claiming the automatic bid reserved for the Pac-12 Tournament champion.
USC baseball coach Andy Stankiewicz is in his second season of a rebuild at Troy. After a disappointing and slow start to the 2023-24 season, going 7-13, the Trojans climbed out of that massive hole to get over .500 during the regular season by going 21-14. Stankiewicz has won 17 conference games in back to back seasons, the first time the Trojans have accomplished this since Mike Gillespie’s 2001 and 2002 squads, per USC athletics. Two more wins, stretching the steak to 10, would put an exclamation mark on a solid sophomore season for Stankiewicz.
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