Oregon softball looking to make history this weekend at Jane Sanders Stadium

EUGENE, Ore. — A lot will be on the line for the No. 3 Oregon Ducks when they host the Michigan State Spartans for their final series of the regular season this weekend. Head coach Melyssa Lombardi's team has equaled its 2021 campaign with the highest national ranking of her tenure in the latest polls, and with one series left in the regular season, has a chance to become the first in program history to end conference play with two or fewer losses.

The Ducks (45-5, 17-2) hold a one-game lead and a crucial tie-breaker over the No. 8 UCLA Bruins (45-7, 16-3) atop the Big Ten standings, meaning that their destiny will lie in their own hands this weekend. A sweep over the Spartans (15-27, 5-14), and Oregon is the conference's regular-season champ in its first year in the league, regardless of what happens to any other team. It would be Lombardi's first conference title and give her Ducks the top seed heading into next week's Big Ten Softball Tournament.

"It's been a lot of hard work," Lombardi said. "Getting the right people involved that are committed to this vision that we all have."

While this weekend will have its implications on the rest of Oregon's 2025 campaign, for a certain group of players, it holds significance for another reason. Oregon's three-game set with Michigan State will be its last home series of the season, making Sunday's Senior Day the final time that six Ducks will take the field in front of their home crowd at Jane Sanders Stadium.

While much of Oregon's success this season has been driven by players who will return next season, there is no doubt that the Ducks wouldn't be where they are today without the contributions of their six seniors: outfielders Kai and Kedre Luschar, shortstop Paige Sinicki, left-handed pitcher Staci Chambers, utility player Dezianna Patmon, and catcher Abby Mulvey.

The Luschar sisters have been a staple atop Oregon's lineup all season long, with Kedre breaking out to join her sister, who established herself as one of the nation's best leadoff hitters with a .410 batting average and 27 steals as a redshirt junior in 2024. This season, Kai has continued her proficiency on the basepaths, leading the nation with 49 swipes, and now sits just five steals short of Janie Takeda's program record of 102 for her career. This has come while reaching base at an even higher clip than in 2024 — despite her batting average falling just under .400 this season — thanks to a walk rate that has increased from just over seven percent across her first three seasons as a Duck to nearly 15 percent this year.

Her sister Kedre, meanwhile, has blossomed into one of the best all-around players in college softball after finally finding a consistent spot in Lombardi's lineup this season. Luschar leads the team with a .461 average this season — a mark that ranks just outside the top 10 nationally — but has become a complete player at the plate, tapping into more power to rank second on the Ducks with a .723 slugging percentage. She leads the team with 14 doubles and five triples this season while also hitting the first five home runs of her collegiate career.

"It's so cool to see her reap the harvest this year," Kai Luschar said of her sister. "She's put in so much work, so it was just when."

But just like her sister, Luschar's defining trait may be her athleticism, which is what makes her one of the best all-around players in the nation, recently joining pitcher Lyndsey Grein as one of the top 25 finalists for USA Softball's Player of the Year award. A perfect 25-for-25 on stolen bases this season, Luschar has been consistently able to put herself on base before taking the extra 60 feet to put herself in scoring position, part of why she leads the Ducks with 50 runs. Her athleticism has also transferred to fantastic defense in center field, a position she took over after an injury to Ayanna Shaw in February. She has made highlight catch after highlight catch this season for the Ducks, like Monday's terrific leaping grab to steal a home run from Notre Dame's Avery Houlihan.

"I still remember the first time I saw Kedre," Lombardi said. "I thought she was really, really athletic, I thought she was really fast, you could see the tools that she had."

Besides the Luschars, the other senior cog in Oregon's lineup has been Sinicki, a gold glove shortstop who has developed into a crucial piece of Oregon's offense during her fourth season in Eugene. Making diving stops has been nothing new for Sinicki, who took home the NFCA/Rawlings Gold Glove at shortstop last season while being named the Pac-12's co-Defensive Player of the Year. But raking in the middle of the Ducks' lineup is something that took time to develop.

Sinicki posted a .707 on-base plus slugging (OPS) across her first three seasons with Oregon, providing most of her value through base running and elite defense at a premium position. As a junior, her on-base percentage (OBP) climbed to .380 as she took a more patient approach at the plate, but this year she has ramped things up to another level. Shifting back to being more aggressive at the plate, Sinicki has made hard contact more consistently than ever before in her career. Her six home runs this season have already surpassed her career-best, while her .592 slugging percentage is more than 200 points higher than the mark she posted in her first three seasons. This has all still come while walking more times (12) than she has struck out this year (11). 

"I've put in a lot of hard work throughout the years," Sinicki said of her offensive results. "It's nice to finally see it paying off in that way."

Sinicki and Kedre Luschar were key pieces of Lombardi's 2021 signing class, with Kai Luschar joining her sister by way of the transfer portal after redshirting during her lone season at Arizona State. Their development has been a testament to the program that Lombardi has built, which is what helped attract players like Chambers and Patmon out of the transfer portal — something you need to do in order to succeed in today's world of college sports.

Both players are perfect examples of why the transfer portal can be great for talented individuals at smaller programs. Chambers posted a 2.87 ERA across 219 ⅓ innings during a four-year career at Cal State Fullerton, and was able to climb the ranks of college softball to become a key bullpen piece as the only lefty arms for one of the top teams in the country. 

Patmon, meanwhile, posted a .934 OPS in two seasons at the CAA's (Coastal Athletic Association) North Carolina A&T before hitting the transfer portal and being named First-Team All-Conference USA last season at New Mexico State. After transferring once again, Patmon has slashed .307/.460/.588 to help put her Ducks in position to capture a Big Ten title, which they can guarantee with a sweep of Michigan State.

First pitch of game one against the Spartans will come at 6 PM on Friday, with the game streaming on B1G+, while Saturday's game has been moved up to 2 PM to accommodate its Big Ten Network broadcast. Oregon will then honor its seniors after the conclusion of Sunday's game starting at 1 PM, also airing on BTN.