Mark Wasikowski not worried about Oregon ‘settling down’ after walk-off win in Game 1

Oregon made history on Friday when it became the first team in NCAA history to overcome an eight-run deficit and win in the Super Regionals. Teams in that situation had been 0-96 prior. Is Oregon settling down a real concern now?

After all, the crowd at PK Park was lights out and it’d be easy to get caught up in an emotional walk-off win like that.

Coach Mark Wasikowski seemed unconcerned.

“I want them to enjoy it,” he said after the game. “I want them to enjoy the fact that PK Park was probably as loud as it’s ever been in the history of this facility. So I want them to enjoy what they did, because that’s special. I want them to enjoy the locker room.”

It was almost definitely a fun one.

Oral Roberts struck first with an eight-run third inning in the opening game of the Eugene Regional, only for Oregon to slowly work its way back into the game over the course of the next five innings.

Then some late heroics from Drew Cowley drove in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth to an enraptured crowd.

“How do we bring them back down?” Wasikowski pondered, “You know, I don’t think that’s going to be very hard because a lot of people might have written this group off when they were struggling and we were going through a lot of adversity with injuries. The fun part is the community didn’t quit on us. Look at these people, they’re going nuts.

“To sell out this entire Super Regional in less than one hour and have our athletic director and everybody, their right-hand people, building facilities to house more people out there, this place can go nuts. So how do we settle them down? We’ll settle them down. We’ll get them calmed back down.”

Oregon won only it second NCAA Regional in school history last weekend, but the Ducks don’t want to be done here. Oregon settling down in time might be the key to that; the team needs to refocus quickly now.

Wasikowski, though, thinks there’s so much the team is playing for that the players will be locked in.

The Ducks haven’t been to Omaha since 1954, something they desperately want to change. It would be a way to link the past with the present, something the program has been out to do ever since Wasikowski took over.

“These guys are hungry. They want to do something that hasn’t been done since 1954,” Wasikowski said. “We’ve got a man named Duane Reeves who literally donates $6 a home run who played on the 1954 team. And so he sends checks every other week or every third week and sometimes they’re all in multiples of six.

“That’s how special it is, when a guy like Duane Reeves is sending us checks for the number of home runs that we hit times six, about every second or third week, that ’54 team and the members of that team, they want us to get back to Omaha.”

Oregon racked up four more home runs — and 24 bucks — in the thrilling comeback against Oral Roberts. A few more and they might just get back to Omaha.

So Oregon settling down? Wasikowski isn’t even sure that needs to be a discussion.

“These guys are grounded. They want us to get back to Omaha,” Wasikowski said. “It’s been a lot of fun. I don’t think these guys, their bellies are full or anything like that. They’re ready to get tomorrow done and win one more game here and move on and play better baseball down the road.”

The post Mark Wasikowski not worried about Oregon ‘settling down’ after walk-off win in Game 1 appeared first on On3.