EUGENE — Oregon lost the series opener to Arizona State, 4-0, at Jane Sanders Stadium Thursday night. Oregon (22-28, 5-17 Pac-12) has been eliminated from postseason contention and is playing its last three games of the season. Arizona State (31-18, 11-11 Pac-12) clinched fourth place in the Pac-12. Below are live updates from tonight’s game. 7th INNING: 4-0 Arizona State Bottom: Shaye Bowden (0-1, BB) grounds out to the pitcher. Cherish Burks (0-1, BB) pops up to second and Lexi Wagner (0-2, 2 K) due up Top: Morgan Howe (0-2, BB, R) pops out to short. Skylar McCarty (0-2, BB, R) flies out to center. Kindra Hackbarth (1-2, BB, 2R, 2B) drops a bunt single and steals second. DeNae Chatman (0-3, K) strikes out swinging. 6th INNING: 4-0 Arizona State Bottom: Haley Cruse (0-2) doubles to left-center, Oregon’s first hit of the game. Allee Bunker (0-2) lines out to short, nearly doubles off Cruse. Jasmine Sievers (0-2) lines out to center. Rachel Cid (0-2, K) walks, two on. April Utecht (0-1, BB) grounds out to second. Top: Yannira Acuna (1-2, 2B) flies out to right. Kiara Kennedy (0-2) strikes out swinging. Bella Loomis (2-2, 3B) grounds out to second, spectacular play by Allee Bunker in the field. 5th INNING: 4-0 Arizona State Bottom: Cherish Burks (0-0, BB) pops up to second. Lexi Wagner (0-1, K) strikes out swinging. Bailey Cook (0-1, K) strikes out swinging. Top: Skylar McCarty (0-1, BB, R) grounds out to second. Kindra Hackbarth (0-1, BB, R) doubled to center. DeNae Chatman (0-2) strikes out swinging. Jade Gortarez (1-2, 2B, 3 RBI) singles to right. Double steal, run scores, 4-0 Arizona State. Maddi Hartbarth (0-1, BB, K) strikes out swinging. 4th INNING: 3-0 Arizona State Bottom: Rachel Cid (0-1) strikes out swinging. April Utecht (0-0, BB) grounds out to short. Shaye Bowden (0-0, BB) grounds out to third. Top: Yannira Acuna (1-1, 2B) flies out to left. Kiara Kennedy (0-1) grounds out to second. Bella Loomis (1-1, 3B) loops a single to center. Morgan Howe (0-1, BB, R) grounds out to first. 3rd INNING: 3-0 Arizona State Bottom: Haley Cruse (0-1) lines out to left. Allee Bunker (0-1) appeared to line a double down the line in left but it’s ruled foul, then grounds out to the pitcher. Jasmine Sievers (0-1) grounds out to third. Top: DeNae Chatman (0-1) grounds out to third. Jade Gortarez (1-1, 2B, 3 RBI) flies out to second. Maddi Hartbarth (0-0, BB) strikes out swinging. 2nd INNING: 3-0 Arizona State Bottom: Rachel Cid flies out to deep left. April Utecht walks. Shaye Bowden walks. Cherish Burks walks to load the bases. Samantha Mejia relieves Cielo Meza. Lexi Wagner strikes out swinging. Bailey Cook strikes out looking. Top: Bella Loomis triples to right. Morgan Howe (0-0, BB, R) pops up to third. Skylar McCarty (0-0, BB, R) pops out to short. Kindra Hackbarth (0-0, BB, R) pops out to third. 1st INNING: 3-0 Arizona State Bottom: Haley Cruse strikes out. Allee Bunker lines out to left. Jasmine Sievers pops out to third. Top: Morgan Howe works a walk after Jordan Dail got ahead 0-2. Skylar McCarty walks on four pitches and Dail has quickly lost command. Kindra Hackbarth walks on five pitches to load the bases, Jordan Dail has no command with 12 balls on 13 pitches. DeNae Chatman flies out to shallow center, great running grab by Haley Cruse. Jade Gortarez smokes a bases-clearing double to right-center, 3-0 Arizona State. Gortatez thrown out trying to steal third. Maddi Hartbarth walks on four pitches. Yannira Acuna laces a double off the top of the wall in right, two on. Kiara Kennedy pops up. --- Arizona State lineup: Morgan Howe CF Skylar McCarty LF Kindra Hackbarth RF DeNae Chatman 1B Jade Gortarez SS Maddi Hartbarth C Yannira Acuna DP Kiara Kennedy 3B Bella Loomis 2B Cielo Meza P Oregon lineup Haley Cruse CF Allee Bunker 2B Jasmine Sievers SS Rachel Cid 3B April Utecht 1B Shaye Bowden C Cherish Burks LF Lexi Wagner RF Bailey Cook DP Jordan Dail P<doc-sep>EUGENE — Besides Mike White and the four players and counting who followed him to Texas, there is no other individual or program to have as great an adverse impact on this Oregon Ducks softball season than Arizona State. Had it not been for the Sun Devils’ refusal to grant Terra McGowan’s waiver to play for UO immediately, she would have been the primary starting catcher for the Ducks, Shaye Bowden would have instead been in right field, and a young, thin and offensively challenged squad would have had another bat in the middle of its lineup. “I think it would have been a lot different,” Bowden said. “I think that we would’ve had a little bit more depth. Obviously, we don’t have as much depth now, as we saw (last) weekend, and that’s something that’s a what-if? You can’t go back and change it. So we did what we did during the season and that’s all we can do about it. I don’t know the what-ifs.” It’s not overstating the case that having McGowan could have helped Oregon (22-27, 5-16 Pac-12), reach the NCAA Tournament. Instead, the Ducks, who went 9-9 in games decided by two runs or less, will end their 2019 season with this weekend’s series against ASU (30-18, 10-11 Pac-12), starting at 5 p.m. Thursday at Jane Sanders Stadium (TV on Pac-12 Networks). “Do I think she could’ve helped us? Absolutely,” Oregon coach Melyssa Lombardi said. “That’s why we wanted her from the very beginning. I’m a believer in things work the way they’re supposed to work. So there’s a reason we’re not supposed to have her this year — I don’t know, because we definitely could’ve used her — but there’s something that we’re not supposed to have her this year. We’re supposed to have her the next four years and if that’s what it’s supposed to be, then that’s what it’s supposed to be. “I believe, especially in coaching, when you’re talking with your athletes you talk a lot about the process. If you get caught up in the outcome, then you’re not going to get what you want. It’s important that you understand and you trust in the process. I think even with Terra’s situation, I just have to trust in the process that we’re not supposed to have her this year.” It wasn’t a higher power that stood in the way of McGowan, only Arizona State athletic director Ray Anderson, who refused to grant her waiver of the Pac-12’s year-in-residency requirement as an intra-conference transfer. The Pac-12 said it granted 20 such waivers in 2018, provided both schools support it, but the Sun Devils did not in McGowan’s case, as Anderson wrote in a Dec. 21 email to ASU senior associate athletic director Ken Landphere and ASU faculty athletic representative Jeffrey Wilson. “I also spoke yesterday with their AD and told him nothing personal,” Anderson wrote in response to a chain of emails regarding McGowan’s transfer to Oregon. “But we do not agree to in-conference transfers and we will resist their appeal.” This wasn’t all a matter of Pac-12 and NCAA transfer rules and procedures, though. McGowan was one of eight players to transfer from Arizona State since the middle of the 2018 softball season. But unlike Oregon, which saw nine players leave this offseason after White’s departure and saw Maddie MacGrandle quit midseason, Arizona State had far more serious and sordid issues involved, according to complaints raised by McGowan and other players and their families in documents acquired by and provided to The Oregonian/OregonLive by ASU in response to a public records request. In a statement to the Pac-12 following ASU’s appeals committee denying her request for a waiver of the year-in-residency requirement, McGowan describes arriving at ASU last summer to a locker room “filled with divisive drama and rampant abuse, and a coaching staff seemingly content with (or at the very least, powerless to change) the toxic culture of the program. “During my first week on campus, I tried to assist a teammate who had alcohol poisoning and was rewarded with a text the next morning instructing me to ‘keep my mouth shut.’ Over the course of the fall semester, the divisive and toxic atmosphere in the locker room worsened. I witnessed and experienced countless instances of verbal abuse and bullying; and even after showing video evidence of such abuse to the coaching staff, the situation remained the same.” McGowan and her mother, Jayne, were not alone in raising such concerns last fall to Arizona State coach Trisha Ford, who via a spokesman did not respond to a request for comment to the documented allegations about her players and program in this story, and to Landphere, Wilson and ASU senior women’s administrator Deana Garner. An Oct. 11 email sent to Garner from an individual whose identity was redacted by ASU states, “Bullying, harassment, stalking and alcohol abuse should not be tolerated in any shape or form. It’s super disappointing to see the same aggressors who abuse their privileges, continue a pattern of bad behavior.” Garner responded by saying ASU took the issues raised “very seriously and have and continue to address them,” including regular meetings and “weekly leadership and educational sessions” with ASU’s dean of students and others. Jayne McGowan told The Oregonian/OregonLive the divide among ASU’s players spread among parents, and it became exhausting to even attend fall games due to a faction of prominent players who were the cause of the issues. “The commotion, the negativity, the entitlement,” Jayne McGowan said. “... They stuck together, supported each other, didn’t support anybody else. In fact, went out of their way to make them feel bad.” On Oct. 28, Landphere wrote an email to Garner and ASU executive associate athletic director Jean Boyd detailing meetings that involved Ford, two players and their families where similar concerns were raised. Landphere wrote that when one of the players, who was leaving the program, was asked why she hadn’t mentioned another player “said something negative or derogatory in passing” at the time, as she had agreed to do at a previous meeting, the player “said what she’s been repeating for months, why should we ‘nobody is going to change anything or do anything about it.’” Two days later, first baseman Danielle Gibson and pitcher Giselle “G” Juarez both announced they were transferring from ASU. They played this season at Arkansas and Oklahoma, respectively, because they transferred out of conference. McGowan not only wasn’t permitted to play this season at Oregon because of ASU’s decision, but because she is ineligible to compete, she could not travel with the Ducks for their road games all season. Her family, which hired a lawyer during the waiver and appeals process, paid for her to go on some of the trips on her own because she wanted to be in attendance and support her teammates even if she couldn’t be in the dugout. “This weekend we’re going to be playing for Terra as well as our seniors,” third baseman Rachel Cid said. “She’s my roommate, too. She’s very supportive of us, always in the dugout when we have home series, being there as much as she can. She’s putting in just as much work as we have at practice.” McGowan will be in the Oregon dugout this weekend and on the field during pregame player introductions. Perhaps most important, she will be in the postgame high-five line between teams. Even with eight players having left ASU in just over a year, the Sun Devils will be meeting one of them again for the first time when they face McGowan, albeit without her being able to play. McGowan’s mother said a former teammate told Terra that ASU planned to throw at her if she was playing. Lombardi is staying above the fray and said she is optimistic there won’t be any issues this weekend. “To me it’s about two teams getting on the field and playing and giving everything you’ve got, (then) afterwards you go and you shake each others’ hands,” Lombardi said. “That’s how you do it the right way.<doc-sep>Despite winning five of its final six games that included a three-game sweep at Oregon, Oregon State was left out of the 2019 NCAA softball tournament field. The 64-team bracket was unveiled Sunday night, and five Pac-12 teams landed in the field, including UCLA, Washington and Arizona among the top six seeds. But left out was Oregon State, which has participated in the past three NCAA tournaments. Oregon State, which had an RPI of 41 heading into the week, was one of the first four teams excluded from the field. No team with a higher RPI missed the tournament field. The Beavers conclude their season with a 26-19 record. Also out is Oregon, which finished last in the Pac-12. This is the first time since 2009 that the Beavers and Ducks didn’t qualify for postseason play. --Nick Daschel | ndaschel@oregonian.com | @nickdaschel Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox.<doc-sep>
EUGENE — Oregon softball’s first losing season since 2009 ended with a run-rule rout at the hands of Arizona State, which capped its series sweep with a home run derby. Four Sun Devils went yard and two others supplied extra-base hits in a 12-4 win over the Ducks in six innings Saturday afternoon at Jane Sanders Stadium. It was a sour end to the season for Jordan Dail (18-18, 4.12 ERA), who made her 17th straight start in 45 appearances. The sophomore southpaw allowed seven runs, five earned, on just six hits and struck out two over 2.2 innings while displaying the same hitch in her stride as when she left Friday’s game. Dail’s season ends with 248 innings pitched, second-highest nationally this year and eighth in Oregon program history, 240 strikeouts and 1,134 batters faced. “She’s run out of gas," Oregon coach Melyssa Lombardi said. "She’s hitting the gas pedal and there’s not a whole lot coming out.” For the first time of the weekend, Dail breezed through a 1-2-3 first inning. Despite not having Haley Cruse in the lineup due to an undisclosed injury, Oregon opened with back-to-back doubles from Allee Bunker and Jasmine Sievers to take a 1-0 lead after one. It was short-lived though, as Jade Gortarez smashed a solo shot to left to tie it at one in the second. The Ducks (22-30, 5-19 Pac-12) regained the lead in the bottom of the frame on a sacrifice fly by Bailey Cook that scored Cherish Burks (3 for 3). Arizona State (33-18, 13-11 Pac-12) pounced on Dail in the third, smacking three more home runs to chase Oregon’s ace from the circle. Kiara Kennedy led off the inning with a game-tying blast, just her second of the season. Skyler McCarty hit an RBI double to give ASU the lead, Kindra Hackbarth followed with a two-run shot and three batters later her sister Maddi Hackbarth did the same to cap a six-run inning. Burks, a senior who tied her career-high with three hits in her final game, hit a two-run single to bring Oregon withing 7-4 after three. “My motto this whole season was, ‘enjoy the moment,’" Burks said. "I have that written on my glove, my walk-up says ‘enjoy the moment’ and I really internalized that today. With everything I wanted to do I was going to leave no regrets on the field. Even a strikeout, I was still going to enjoy the moment and take in the fans and take in the smells and really capture what it is to have my last game here at the Jane.” Arizona State expanded its lead with three runs in the fourth off Rachel Cid. Morgan Howe hit a two-run triple and Kindra Hackbarth added an RBI groundout. ASU added two more in the sixth to invoke the run-rule and mercifully put an end to a tumultuous roller coaster ride of 2018-19 for the Ducks, who saw nine players leave the program before the season and a mid-year transfer have an underwhelming performance before quitting in the middle of the season. But Dail, Cruse and a trio of freshmen infielders give Oregon pieces to build around as Melyssa Lombardi and her staff will assuredly peruse the transfer portal aggressively this offseason to reload the roster to be deeper and more competitive in 2020. “It was a tough season,” Lombardi said of her first year both at UO and as a head coach. "To say that, ‘Oh, this was no problem’ - it was very tough. It was tough on me for sure. The fall was tough; the spring was tough, at times not knowing if we’re going to have somebody to pitch, not knowing if somebody’s out because of an injury who’s going to play that position. "But every time it got tough somebody on this team stepped up and said, you know what? I got you. We’re OK. ... I look at the nucleus that is here and it’s good. It’s good, it’s really, really good. And what’s cool is they know it. They know it as a group that it’s good.”