Oregon Softball Faces Early Season Reality Check, Eyes Bounce-Back at Cardinal Classic
STANFORD, Calif. - For a team with Women's College World Series aspirations and a top-five preseason ranking, Oregon’s opening weekend at the NFCA Leadoff Classic didn’t quite go as scripted. The Ducks, led by head coach Melyssa Lombardi, came into the season with momentum and high expectations. But after five games in Florida, they left with more questions than answers-and a sub-.500 record to start the year.
Oregon opened with a bang-ace Lyndsey Grein tossed a 14-strikeout no-hitter in the season opener. It was the kind of performance that makes you believe a dominant weekend is on deck.
But the Ducks couldn’t sustain that energy. They dropped three of their next four games, including losses to No.
18 Clemson, No. 3 Tennessee, and Southeastern Louisiana.
Their only other win came against Liberty-a team that went winless in the tournament and fell out of the top 25.
Yes, the schedule was brutal. Facing two ranked teams and another on the fringe is no easy task, especially this early in the season.
But that was by design. Lombardi made it clear in the preseason: if Oregon wants to be taken seriously as a national contender-especially with a Big Ten slate that doesn’t offer many marquee matchups-they need to prove themselves against top-tier competition now.
The Ducks embraced that challenge, but the early results have been humbling.
The loss to Southeastern Louisiana on Sunday morning stung the most. It’s the kind of game that could linger on Oregon’s resume come May when postseason seeding is on the line. But even in a tough weekend, there were silver linings-and the Ducks are holding onto those as they turn the page to the Cardinal Classic.
They’ll get five more games in three days, starting Friday morning against Cal State Fullerton. Then it's Kentucky twice-once Friday and again Saturday-followed by Cal Poly and host No.
12 Stanford on Sunday. It’s another opportunity to test themselves, and this time, in a brand-new ballpark that has Lombardi and her players buzzing.
“I can’t wait, I’m really excited to see their stadium,” Lombardi said.
If Oregon is going to get back on track, they’ll need more of what they saw from sophomore second baseman Kaylynn Jones. She led the team with a .400 average through the first five games, continuing the hot streak she built at the end of her freshman campaign.
Last season, Jones admitted she let the mental side of the game get too big early on. Now, she’s locked in on her process-and it’s showing.
“It’s kind of just the thing that we’ve learned as a group-results don’t really matter,” Jones said. “It’s just how you go about it, playing with the girls that you love.”
That mindset is central to what Lombardi is preaching. The Ducks expect to win every time they take the field, but this isn’t about chasing perfection-it’s about chasing growth. The biggest disappointment from Clearwater wasn’t the losses, it was the fact that Oregon didn’t meet its own internal standard.
“We always talk about our expectation and what that looks like,” Lombardi said. “All of us agree that we did not meet our expectation. Just that alone, we knew that we needed to come back, we needed to get things right, and then be ready to go into the next weekend.”
Softball, perhaps more than any other sport, demands that kind of mental reset. A few bad hops, a mistimed swing, or a tough strike zone can flip a game-and a weekend.
Lombardi knows that. She’s coaching her team to focus less on outcomes and more on execution.
Have a plan. Stick to it.
Let the results take care of themselves.
That’s the approach first baseman Rylee McCoy is taking, too. The sophomore slugger was a freshman All-American last year but struggled out of the gate this season, hitting just .067 in Florida. Still, she’s not panicking.
“I want to keep building, and I want to keep growing from last season,” McCoy said. “I feel like this year, I am figuring out what this version of Rylee needs. It’s just different from last year, but I feel like I do have a good foundation and I’m confident in myself now.”
The Ducks will need McCoy and the rest of the middle of the order to find their rhythm quickly. But it’s not just the bats that need tightening up-the pitching staff has to settle in, too.
Grein and Elise Sokolsky combined for 17 walks in 21 2/3 innings. That’s a lot of free passes, especially against elite opponents.
Grein also exited the Southeastern Louisiana game after a collision at the plate, but Lombardi says she’s “doing good” and will be available this weekend.
In the meantime, Oregon got a lift from its bullpen. Junior Taylour Spencer and freshman Maddie Milhorn were quietly excellent, combining for a 1.14 ERA and 0.973 WHIP over 12 1/3 innings. They provided the kind of consistency the Ducks will need if they’re going to make a deep postseason run.
“We need to have a deep staff,” Lombardi said. “Last year, we talked about having a deep staff. I think this year it’s deeper.”
There’s no sugarcoating it: the first weekend didn’t go the way Oregon planned. But Lombardi’s been around long enough to know that early stumbles don’t define a season. In fact, they often shape the teams that end up playing in Oklahoma City.
“I’ve had teams start off the first weekend and look just like you all, and they’re standing at the Women’s College World Series,” Lombardi told her team. “It’s about learning from it, growing, having urgency, and I think for us, we all just cannot wait to play the next game.”
That next game comes Friday morning. And after a tough first test, the Ducks are ready to show what they’ve learned.