Box Score

EUGENE, Oregon - No. 17/21 Baylor softball (45-14, 2-2) saw its 2016 season cut short in the Eugene Regional Championship game, falling 8-1 to the host school, No. 4 Oregon, at Jane Sanders Stadium.

Heather Stearns (20-8) closed out her Baylor career, working through 4.2 innings and allowing five runs on seven hits.

Kelsee Selman took the final 2.1 innings, giving up three runs on four hits, while striking out two.

For the Baylor, working for the second-straight day against All-American Oregon pitcher, Cheridan Hawkins, the Lady Bear offense showed improvement, spreading out four hits, but stranding six.

The lone run for the Baylor offense came with two outs in the sixth, with Caitlin Charlton keeping the hot bat to drive in Lindsey Cargill with an RBI double.

In the 11-member Eugene Regional All-Tournament team, Baylor earned two honors, with Shelby Friudenberg selected as the top first baseman and Caitlin Charlton named the top utility player.

The hosting Ducks placed seven, with Fordham and Long Beach State each earning one selection.

STAT OF THE DAY #1
.415 - the final batting average for freshman Kyla Walker, setting a new Baylor single season batting average record, topping her sister, Kayce Walker's record by .02 (.413, 2009).

STAT OF THE DAY #2
4 - the consecutive years that Baylor has advanced to at least the NCAA Regional Championship game, matching the program record (2004-2007).

STAT OF THE DAY #3
.526 - the combined batting average for Lindsey Cargill and Caitlin Charlton, accounting for 10 hits, seven RBI, and four runs scored.

WHAT'S NEXT
The Lady Bears will have 16 players returning for the 2017 campaign.

#SicEm

EUGENE, Ore. - Totally dominated by Oregon just a day earlier in a one-hit shutout, Baylor softball went down swinging this time.

But the Lady Bears (45-14) still went down.

While Baylor mustered just four hits off Cheridan Hawkins (23-3) and Megan Kleist and was shut out through the first six innings, the host Ducks (47-8) pounded out 11 hits and scored in all but two innings in an 8-1 win in Sunday's region championship game before an overflow crowd of 2,098 at Jane Sanders Stadium.

"We ran into a team that was very good and on a mission and hitting on all cylinders," Baylor coach Glenn Moore said. "And if they play like that, they can win a national championship. They're that good. We've seen a lot of good teams this year and have not been dominated by any of them like we were by Oregon. My hat's off to Oregon. But at the same time, I thought our girls fought back."

That fight was never more evident than in the bottom of the sixth inning, when the Lady Bears were twice down to their last out in being run-ruled by Oregon's powerful attack.

Kleist, who came on in the fifth, got two quick outs before Lindsey Cargill reached on a fielding error by second baseman Lauren Lindvall. With the Oregon crowd on its feet and the Lady Bears down to one strike, Caitlin Charlton drilled an RBI double to left that at least gave them another inning.

"My mindset was just to go down swinging, do everything I can to try to get a run across, get on base, just keep the game alive," said Carlton, an all-tournament pick who went 4-for-9 with four RBI and two runs scored. "I was just doing everything I could to give those seniors another shot, another inning."

One of those four seniors, catcher Robin Landrith opened the seventh with a drive to the left-center gap that centerfielder Koral Costa hauled in with a running catch. Kleist then struck out Kyla Walker on three pitches and Jessie Scroggins grounded out to short to end the game.

"We had a little better game plan and stirred the pot a little bit this game," Moore said. "It certainly wasn't enough, but I'm still proud of these girls and the fight they put up."

One of the ways Moore tried to stir the pot was with a lineup change that had Ari Hawkins moving up to the 2-hole and Walker down at No. 9, "trying to get more righty matchups against the lefty (Hawkins)," he said.

"Ironically, when we loaded the bases, we had two lefties coming up," Moore said. "Hawkins is as devastating at left-handed pitcher as we've seen. We turned Cargill around and hit her from the right side, and she dropped a bunt and we were able to get a little more going. It wasn't enough, but that was our objective was to have her face more righties. We've got a lot of lefties in our lineup, so we were trying to put some righties together to try to put some hits together."

Oregon pushed a run across in the first on a bunt single by leadoff hitter Jenna Lilley, two free passes and a sac fly by Janelle Lindvall. The Ducks added a two-out run in the second when Alyssa Gillepsie reached on a bunt single and scored on Lilley's double to the gap in right-center.

The damage could have been worse, but Cargill gunned down Lilley at the plate on Nikki Udria's single to left.

Baylor put together one of its best threats in the bottom of the second, loading the bases on an error, Cargill's bunt single and a Charlton walk. But Hawkins buckled down to strike out Landrith and get Walker on a comebacker to the circle.

After a brief seven-minute rain delay at the start of the third, Oregon made it 3-0 in the fourth when Cargill lost a hit by Gillespie to left that turned into an RBI double.

The Ducks tacked on two more runs off Heather Stearns (20-8) in the fifth on a suicide squeeze bunt by Janelle Lindvall and an RBI single by her sister, Lauren, to make it 5-0.

"I thought Heather was much better today, but we made some mistakes again," Moore said. "We didn't play clean ball against them. They forced a lot of it, so I give them credit. But you've got to play errorless ball to have a chance against them and we didn't do it."

The odds of a Baylor comeback became much longer when Udria blasted a three-run homer to center off relief pitcher Kelsee Selman, who saw her first action in the region tournament.

"Overall, I think I threw a good game," Stearns said. "They put pressure on all of us, clearly. . . . It wasn't an ideal weekend to go out, I guess, but it's been a really fun four years."

While Baylor closes out the season with its fourth straight trip to a region final, Oregon advances to host 12th-seeded UCLA in next weekend's Super Regional.

NOTES: Sophomore first baseman Shelby Friudenberg joined Charlton on an all-tournament squad headed by Oregon's Gillespie and Hawkins as co-MVPs. . . . Walker, who went 1-for-3 in Sunday's game, hit .415 to break the single-season school record shared by Ashley Monceaux and her sister, Kayce Walker (.413).