Oregon baseball's Anson Aroz stands in the on-deck circle against Portland on April 2. Aroz was ejected in the eighth inning of Oregon's 6-5 loss to Utah Valley after colliding with Wolverines catcher Mason Strong on Friday, May 30. Staff photo: Jonathan House

Oregon (42-14) baseball head coach Mark Wasikowski was not pleased with a game-altering video review call in the eighth inning of the Ducks’ 6-5 loss to Utah Valley (33-27) on Friday, May 30 at Eugene’s PK Park.

With his team trailing 6-4, Ducks left fielder Anson Aroz attempted to tag-up from third base on a fly out from teammate Chase Meggers, colliding with Wolverines catcher Mason Strong at home plate. After a lengthy deliberation by the officiating crew in Eugene, Aroz was ruled out on the play for “malicious contact” and ejected from the remainder of the contest as well as Oregon’s game Saturday. Officials also stated that there was no obstruction of the plate by Strong.

Nate Rasmussen, Utah Valley’s head coach, said postgame that he did not challenge the play, but asked the umpires to talk about Aroz’s slide.

“I just didn’t think (Aroz) slid,” Rasmussen said. “That was the big thing is it just felt like he didn’t go down for an actual baseball move. That’s at least what I saw in the moment. I actually didn’t challenge, I asked them to look and they said they’d challenge it themselves, so they would look at it for a malicious act and we only had one challenge left. They chose to look at it, which I thought was an awesome job for an umpire crew and
obviously it went our way. I haven’t looked at the replay yet, all I know is that our catcher got hit hard
and I was right there for his safety and I’m glad it went our direction. I thought we got it right, I just
thought he didn’t make a sliding move.”

Wasikowski disagreed with Rasmussen’s view, saying he was told by the officiating crew that the decision to eject Aroz for the “malicious” slide was made by an NCAA-sanctioned external review team in Pittsburgh.

“All they said is it came from Pittsburgh. I feel bad for the umpires,” Wasikowski said. “They said it came from Pittsburgh and it was out of their hands. I’m really proud of the way Anson Aroz went into home plate the way he did. I was taught to play hard. I was taught to get after it by my dad and my coaches growing up, and unfortunately, playing hard was not rewarded tonight by whatever rule was supposedly violated by a
player that was playing hard.”

Oregon put one more run on the board in the bottom of the ninth, a sacrifice fly from Jacob Walsh that drove in Carter Garate, but weren’t able to rally for the walk-off or to force extra innings.

Oregon’s loss puts them into the losers bracket of the Eugene regional, where they’ll face Cal Poly (41-18) at noon on Saturday in an elimination game. Utah Valley advances to play Arizona (40-18) at 6 p.m. on Saturday.

The Ducks outhit the Wolverines, 10-5, but, despite leadoff batters reaching base safely in five of nine chances, were one-for-seven with runners in scoring position and stranded eight. Oregon also committed two errors, their third-straight game with multiple defensive blunders (nine total in the span).

Prior to Walsh’s sac-fly, all of Oregon’s runs came via the long ball. Aroz bashed a solo shot in the third inning, while fellow outfielder Drew Smith notched three RBI on a pair of homers, one in the third and one in the eighth.

On the bump, right-handed pitcher Jason Reitz (5-1) took his first loss of the season despite a career day. The junior allowed six runs (five of which were earned) on four hits and a pair of walks, but struck out a career-high 14 batters in six innings of relief. Reitz was lifted from the game after putting two batters on in the top of the seventh, throwing 110-total pitches in the loss.

“The fourteen K’s is what it is, but the bottom line is I don’t feel like I did my job to the standard that I
need to do to help us win the game,” Reitz said. “We’ll come out tomorrow and fight for the next three days, and that’s all we can do.”

Out of the bullpen, sophomore right-hander Cole Stokes struggled, walking the only two batters he faced and throwing just three of his 11 pitches for strikes. Stokes was, however, sandwiched between a pair of solid outings. Left-hander Santiago Garcia came on in relief of Reitz and allowed a two-RBI single (both runs were credited to Reitz), but worked out of it with a strikeout. Freshman right-hander Tanner Bradley finished the game, throwing two perfect innings. Prior to tossing the eighth and ninth, Bradley had appeared in just three other games and had three career innings to his credit.

“(Bradley is) a young guy that’s been coming on for us,” Wasikowski said. “Maybe at the start of the year,
he wasn’t quite ready for that at all. And he just has really worked with (pitching coach Blake Hawksworth) on a daily basis, and really (had to grind) to get himself in a spot where… he gave us what we needed to be
able to stay in the game. Got some critical outs there and just really proud of his development through
Coach Hawksworth. I thought that was tremendous.”

Oregon will face Cal Poly at noon on Saturday, May 31 at PK Park in Eugene. Neither team has announced a starting pitcher at the time of publication.