Oregon softball's surge to Big Ten supremacy led by 'special' freshmen class

EUGENE, Ore. — It's hard to be a freshman in college. For the first time in your life, you are out on your own in the world, experiencing the ups and downs that it has to offer. An extra degree is added to that challenge as a softball player, as for many who starred for their various high school and travel ball programs, it is the first time they will experience setbacks on the field.

When freshmen start their careers, it is not uncommon to see them "take the league by storm" as a player that teams have not seen before. Teams simply don't have scouting reports on them yet, and thus have to make adjustments after they have seen them play. This is what can lead to what is commonly known as the "sophomore slump," as opponents readjusts to this new player, causing them to fall behind their initial production.

This year's Oregon softball team (32-3, 6-1) returned only two starters from last season. The Ducks have had to rely on their youth, led by a strong freshman core, and as such, have had to ride out the highs and lows that have come with that along the road.

Before the season started, head coach Melyssa Lombardi noted the energy that this team had, emboldened by an exciting freshman class. 

"We've been saying it since day one, since the first day they all came on campus, you could just feel that this group was different," Lombardi said. "I mean, every year your group's gonna be different than groups in the past. That's just normal, but I don't know, there's just something with this group and the way that they went about things just different, special.

"The energy was just ridiculous, and then from there, seeing them put the work in on the field, put their work in in our leadership meetings, you could really start to see things come together with them."

The Ducks began the season on a rampage, setting program scoring records powered by their freshman. First, it was catcher Emma Cox, who hit .500 with a pair of homers during the opening weekend in Las Vegas to take home Big Ten Freshman of the Week. Next, it was designated hitter Stefini Ma'ake in Arizona, who hit .438 with four homers, to be named the next Big Ten Freshman of the Week. Oregon made it a three-peat when first baseman Rylee McCoy was not only the Big Ten, but the National Freshman of the Week according to D1 Softball, hitting .438 with four homers to take home MVP of the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic. Those three were joined in the starting lineup by second baseman Kaylynn Jones, who began the season hitting .306 with a .422 on-base percentage (OBP) through the first two weeks.

Playing at such high levels, regression was always a question of when, not if, for the Ducks' freshmen. For McCoy, it still hasn't happened yet, as after dealing with a knee injury cost her a week of action in early March, she has continued to hit like one of the best players in the country, ranking fourth in the Big Ten with a 1.535 on-base plus slugging (OPS) while pacing the Ducks with 13 home runs. But unfortunately for the others, regression eventually came in some form.

Cox succumbed to the grind of playing backstop day in and day out, taking a foul ball off the chest that has cost her the last month of the season (although she has recently been out of her sling). After her hot start, Jones fell into a slump, hitting .224 without a single extra-base hit over the next 21 games — although she still maintained a .350 OBP thanks to an outstanding 16.7 percent walk rate. Ma'ake's roaring freshman campaign came to a sputtering halt as she fell into a rut, beginning a seven-game hitless streak at the Jane Sanders Classic that continued into the opening weekend of conference play in Seattle.

After starting the season so strongly, belting eight home runs in her first 20 collegiate games, Ma'ake suddenly couldn't buy a base hit, with her hitless streak reaching 18 straight at-bats at its peak. She wasn't failing to make contact, still keeping her strikeout rate under 20 percent, but was no longer making the hard, damaging contact that she had made early on in the season. Ma'ake has always been an aggressive player at the plate, often preaching a "see-ball, hit-ball" mentality, and her opponents knew this, nibbling around the strike zone to induce swings that would produce weak contact.

As she continued to roll over grounders and sky pop-ups rather than hitting the hard line drives and fly balls that she was looking for, Ma'ake knew she would have to make an adjustment, just as her opponents had adjusted to her. It all started back in Seattle, with her Ducks trailing the Washington Huskies 3-0 in the top of the sixth inning.

Oregon had beaten their northern rivals convincingly in the series' first two games, with Ma'ake even chipping in a sacrifice fly in a 9-0 game one rout, as she still couldn't find a hit. But on Sunday afternoon, during the second half of a rain-induced doubleheader, Ma'ake knew her team needed her, trailing by three runs with two outs and the bases loaded.

She scorched the first pitch she saw from Husky hurler Morgan Reimer back up the middle, past a diving Sophi Mazzola, and off the center field wall in front of Broccoli Guy. Three runs would come across to score, and even though the Ducks would eventually go on to lose the game, the moment was massive in getting their freshman star back on track.

"I don't look at our freshmen as freshmen anymore," Lombardi said. "They haven't been freshmen for a while, so to see them have success and then to see things, maybe have some bumps, and how they handle that in a mature way, and just know, anytime we have bumps, it's good. It means we're growing."

Ma'ake said at the time that working to get past her struggles at the plate was a "process." She decided that game that she needed to change her mentality, as she had let the pitchers get into her head and had to "just move on from that and know that I'm a better hitter."

That change in mentality has gone hand-in-hand with an adjustment to her approach at the plate. Ma'ake is still a very aggressive, swing-first hitter, but has begun to hunt more, staying patient and looking for pitches that she can attack. Her five walks this season are the fewest among Oregon's regular starters, thanks to a walk rate at just 4.3 percent, but her two walks at Illinois were her first in 11 games, and since that hit at UW, she has walked in 9.1 percent of her plate appearances. This has coincided with a return in her power stroke, as she is still one of the strongest players in all of college softball, having belted a 300-foot home run earlier this season, and has utilized her new approach to attack the pitches she likes.

"It's just swing decisions and taking pitches," Ma'ake said of the adjustment in her approach. "Making the pitcher pitch to me instead of getting myself out and then allowing myself to hit good pitching."

Dating back to that three-run double at Washington, Ma'ake is 12 for her last 20 at the plate, good for a .600 batting average while driving in 17 runs. This has included a ridiculous stretch in her last three games that saw her take home Big Ten Freshman of the Week honors once again as she homered twice in the Ducks' pair of dominant wins at Rutgers before adding two more jacks on Wednesday night as Oregon drubbed their in-state rivals.

"It just really shows that the work that I do on the off days is really helping," Ma'ake said. "Continuing to talk to Coach [Sydney] Ro[mero] about my approach at the plate, and then continuing to talk to Coach [Sam] Marder when I'm in the circle."

Ma'ake is not the only freshman who has shown an ability to counter her opponent's adjustments. Jones has also raised her average back over .300 with a recent hot spell. She broke a 25-game streak without an extra-base hit with a pair of doubles in a 4-for-4 day in Oregon's first game over Rutgers, and has followed by going 3-for-6 over the last two games to raise her season average up to .305 and her OBP back to .409, still maintaining the Ducks' second-best walk rate at 15.4 percent (shoutout to Dezianna Patmon's ridiculous 23.3 percent walk rate).

"The time we're uncomfortable, it's good, it means we're growing," Lombardi said. "So that growth they've had as freshmen, I mean, imagine this freshman group when they're seniors, just with what they've been doing in their first year. So, you're gonna have growth, and if you are comfortable being uncomfortable, that's when you're gonna grow faster, and understand how to make some adjustments quicker. I think that's what you can see with all of them."

Oregon, and its freshman class, is now a topic of national conversation, recently climbing as high as No. 5 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball rankings. In their first season in the conference, Lombardi's squad appears to be the class of the Big Ten. The Ducks are the league's highest ranked team, and will be looking to continue to prove itself as conference play rolls along.

This weekend, the Ducks welcome the Michigan Wolverines (27-9, 6-1), a traditional Big Ten power and the reigning conference tournament champions.

"They always have great pitching, great hitters, they play the right way, they've got excellent coaching," Lombardi said of this weekend's competition. "So we've got to be at our very best for this team that's coming in to play us."

Oregon's biggest test of the season will come in just over two weeks, when the No. 7 UCLA Bruins will pay a visit to Jane Sanders Stadium for a three-game set, but it will be important for the Ducks not to overlook the opponent in front of them this weekend. First pitch of game one will be set for 6 PM on Friday night and will be broadcast on the Big Ten Network and KWVA. Game two will kick off at 4 PM on Saturday before Oregon wraps things up against the Wolverines at 1 PM on Sunday and takes on Loyola Marymount for a one-off at noon on Monday.