Oregon Ducks Fall to UCLA Bruins After Seventh Inning Home Run Walk Off: Game Summary
The No. 16 nationally ranked Oregon Ducks softball team (53-9) took a nail-biting 4-2 loss in the Women’s College World Series (WCWS) against the No. 9 ranked UCLA Bruins at Devon Park in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. After two scoreless innings to open the game, Oregon’s Kedre Luschar punched in Oregon’s first run of the game […]
The No. 16 nationally ranked Oregon Ducks softball team (53-9) took a nail-biting 4-2 loss in the Women’s College World Series (WCWS) against the No. 9 ranked UCLA Bruins at Devon Park in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
After two scoreless innings to open the game, Oregon’s Kedre Luschar punched in Oregon’s first run of the game with a right side RBI and Kaylynn Jones dashing to home base to finish the play. UCLA responded to the Ducks with two runs in the bottom of the fourth inning, as the Ducks continued to trail till the top of the seventh inning.
With the lead in sight, Paige Sinicki hits a double to advance to second base. After Sinicki advanced to third base during a different batter, Emma Cox gets a fielder’s choice to third base, getting herself to first and Sinicki to a home base attempt. Sinicki makes the run, but is tapped out. However, Oregon challenges for obstruction. The call on the field is out at home. In favor of Oregon, the obstruction challenge is upheld and Sinicki scores to tie the game 2-2.
The Bruins gets the last laugh with Jessica Clemmons hitting a home run right down the middle in the bottom of the seventh, sealing the Ducks’ fate with a final score of 4-2.
Oregon coach Melyssa Lombardi celebrates as the Ducks widen the score in the fifth inning against Stanford. / Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Prior to their entrance to the WCWS, the Ducks beat down the Liberty Flames 13-1 for the final game of a three game sweep during the Eugene Super Regionals at Jane Sanders Stadium in Eugene. This will be the seventh WCWS appearance for Oregon and the first helmed by coach Melyssa Lombardi.
Now in the losers’ bracket, the Ducks take on Ole Miss in an elimination game at 6:30pm on Friday.
Check below for a summary of the game. The latest highlights are at the top of the article.
– Jessica Clements hits it right down the middle for a home run. The Bruins get two runs to seal the deal against the Ducks. This is Clements’ WCWS debut.
– UCLA’s Terry fouled out caught by Oregon’s Flannery. Two outs for the Bruins.
– UCLA’s Mujica singles and runs to first. Stephens comes in for a pinch runner.
– Jones is grounded to end the top of the inning.
DUCKS 2, BRUINS 2
– Legg pinch runs for Cox on first base.
– Cox reached on a fielders’ choice to third base and gets to first base. Sinicki goes for home, but is tapped out. However, Oregon challenges for obstruction. Call on the field is out at home. Obstruction challenge is upheld. Runner is safe. Oregon scores with Sinicki. The game is tied.
– Patman out after trying to advance from first base to second. Sinicki advances to third base.
– Paige Sinicki doubles to get to second base. Ruling on the field is a fair ball but the call is challenged by UCLA. The call is upheld.
– Woolery is caught stealing and out, ending the inning.
– Sokolsky gets her first strikeout with Ramirez swinging.
– Elise Sokolsky is brought in to relieve Grein. UCLA’s Curo hits a pinch hit for an advance to first. Pinedo on second, Woolery on third.
– UCLA’s Grant is walked, with Pinedo as a pinch runner on first base. Woolery advances to second base.
– UCLA’s Woolery singled to left field and goes to first base.
– Kedre Luschar is grounded out, McCoy is also struck out swinging, giving Terry her sixth strike out of the game. Oregon is 3-20 overall in batting with 1-7 on batting with two outs.
– UCLA’s Terry earns her fifth strikeout of the night with Kai Luschar. It’s only the fourth time this season Luschar has struck out during a game.
– Ducks have a 4-6 record when trailing into the fifth inning.
– Savannah Pola strikes out, ending the inning for the Bruins with Clements on base. Bruins are 1-6 at batting with runners on base. Grein ends the inning with four hits, two strikeouts, and one walk with 20 batters faced so far.
– Jessica Clements doubles to left center for UCLA, heading to second base.
– Jones caught stealing second base and hit out as the inning concludes.
– Jones singled through left side and gets on first, had time to run to second but stayed.
– Ma’ake grounds out to second for the Ducks.
DUCKS 1, BRUINS 2
– UCLA’s Alexis Ramirez hits a home run, as her and Hatch both make runs for the Bruins to put UCLA in the lead.
– Bruins are 0-4 at batting with runners on as Hatch advances to second base.
– Jordan Woolery gets a single on Grein with Lauren Hatch running to first for Woolery.
– Kaniya Bragg of UCLA get’s a good grab on a short hit from Emma Cox. Sinicki and Patmon ground out.
– Kedre Luschar smashes the Bruins’ third-inning dugout party with a long-ball catch to seal the inning. Grein ends the third with one strikeout after facing 11 batters.
– Oregon gets their second timing infraction, this time against batter McCoy.
DUCKS 1, BRUINS 0
– Kedre Luschar delivers Oregon’s first run of the night with a single. Kaylynn Jones runs it in from third base after her own single and two advancements.
– Grein gets her first strikeout of the night as the Ducks head to the top of the third. UCLA is the only team with a hit on the board, with one.
– Pitcher Kaitlyn Terry for UCLA marks her fourth strikeout of the game as Dez Patmon and Stefini Ma’ake both strike out swinging. Ducks with 3 players this game batting with two outs on the board.
– UCLA ends the inning with two runners at bases during batting, but isn’t able to get any points on the board.
– Coaches agree to a no-pitch, no-hit if the lights continue to fail at Devon Park. The delay was 4-minutes long.
– The lights at Devon Park turn off once again, with both head coaches convening to determine how to go forward. The Duck players are hyping up their fans during the delay.
– The lights at Devon Park turn off at the beginning of the bottom of the first, assumed by announcers to be on a timer to turn off at 10pm EST.
– Lyndsey Grein in at pitcher for the Ducks.
– The Ducks are not able to get anything moving early, with both Kai Luschar and Rylee McCoy striking out.
LF Kai Luschar
CF Kedre Luschar
DP Rylee McCoy
SS Paige Sinicki
RF Dez Patmon
C Emma Cox
1B Stefini Ma’ake
2B Kaylynn Jones
3B Katie Flannery
P Lyndsey Grein
UPDATE: According to Oregon Softball’s “X” account, a weather delay in the Oklahoma City area has pushed back the game start time to 7:45pm PST.
PREVIEW
In the Big Ten, the Ducks take the winning record against the Bruins 2-1, but the Bruins hold the alltime record between the teams at 97-33. The Bruins and the Ducks met once in the WCWS in 2015, with the Bruins clinching the win 7-1.
Players to look for in this match-up include redshirt senior outfielder Kai Luschar, who holds the Oregon program record for steals in a game (4), in a season (59), and in a college career (107).
On the mound, junior pitcher Lyndsey Grein shined against the Flames in a final series game rebound. Grein marked her first complete game since March, punching in a three-hitter and striking out ten.
Senior infielder Paige Sinicki also shined against Liberty, with four home runs in the final game of the Super Regional. She’s an All-Big Ten First Team selection and won the 2024 Gold Glove for her efforts with the Ducks.
How to Watch:
No. 5 Oregon will take on No. 9 UCLA on Thursday, May 29. First pitch is set for 6:30 p.m. PT and the game will be broadcast on ESPN2.
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The Ducks are fresh off an electric Super Regional against Liberty. After the Flames knocked out No. 1 Texas A&M in College Station, they came to Eugene with all the momentum. Game one was a back-and-forth battle, but senior Dez Patmon came through in extra innings, delivering the walk-off hit in the eighth to win the game. Oregon then went into game two firing on all cylinders, running away with a 13-1 win, clinching their spot in the WCWS.
Mizzou spent $31M on NIL in past year, including $10M last month
Part of the reason the unregulated, Wild West era of NIL in college athletics had to go, we were told, was because that system was unsustainable. It seemed to be sustaining just fine at Missouri though. Via the Freedom of Information Act, the Columbia Missourian uncovered a treasure trove of documents related to Missouri’s NIL program, […]
Part of the reason the unregulated, Wild West era of NIL in college athletics had to go, we were told, was because that system was unsustainable. It seemed to be sustaining just fine at Missouri though.
Via the Freedom of Information Act, the Columbia Missourianuncovered a treasure trove of documents related to Missouri’s NIL program, giving perhaps the most unvarnished look at how college athletes were paid in the NIL era. Those documents were available because Missouri paid its athletes straight from the athletics department to the Tigers’ collective — Every True Tiger Brands, LLC — and the newspaper got ahold of invoices ETT sent to the university.
The headline figure was that Missouri spent $31.7 million on NIL within the past year — the vast majority going to football — but even that hardly tells the true story. In fact, Mizzou spent just shy of $25 million from January 2025 to June, including a whopping $10.279 million in June alone. This practice came to be known as “front-loading,” as Mizzou offloaded payments that likely would be denied by the new Deloitte-run NIL Go clearinghouse (whose legality has yet to be challenged). Mizzou also spent $4.647 million in January, a period that coincided with the football transfer portal, and $3.592 million in May, a period that coincided with the basketball portal.
To the original point above, the Missourian uncovered invoices dating back to September 2023, and the numbers generally rose over time, even before the House settlement and its consequences became a reality.
Broken into roughly 7-month periods, here’s how the money rose over time:
September 2023-April 2024: $794,171 average (High: $881K | Low: $662K) May 2024-November 2024: $1.64 million average (High: $1.872M | Low: $902K) December 2024-June 2025: $3.738 million average (High: $10.279M | Low: $1.211M)
Even removing the outlier of June 2025, Mizzou was still spending an average of $2.5 million per month on NIL during the last six months of the “unregulated” system.
As for how that money was spent, the Missourian found ETT paid nearly two-thirds of every dollar it was supplied on football ($8 million of the $12.4 million in total), with men’s basketball getting 23.5 percent, baseball just below 4 percent, women’s basketball just below 3 percent ($348,100 in real dollars) and on down to the tennis team, which received $100,000.
Like all SEC schools, Missouri will spend the full $20.5 million “salary cap” as allowed under the House settlement, with $18 million coming in actual dollars and $2.5 million in new scholarships counting toward the cap. Most observers anticipate football eating up 75 percent of the cap, but Georgia announced in February it will spend roughly 66 percent of its $20.5 million on football, in line with how Missouri distributed its NIL money.
The fight for the money football and men’s basketball does not consume will be real and vicious. At Mizzou, that likely manifests between baseball, women’s basketball and the rest of the Olympic sports. The Tigers endured a historically bad season on the diamond, complete with a last-place 3-27 record in conference play. Afterward, AD Laird Veatch, in announcing that he would not fire head coach Kerrick Jackson, said a “lack of support” explained the club’s performance.
“We have not invested at the level that we need to really be competitive in this league, and that sport in particular, it’s an incredibly competitive sport,” Veatch said. That support will likely come at the expense of Missouri’s other sports — but not football or men’s basketball.
To make up the gap, Mizzou — like every other school — will increase its efforts to generate outside sponsorships for its athletes.
“We’re going to need our businesses, our sponsors to really embrace that as part of the new era,” Veatch said. “It’s going to be on us as athletic departments (and) Learfield as our partner to continue to integrate those types of opportunities in meaningful ways for sponsors.”
As the numbers proved, the money to pay athletes simply for being Missouri Tigers was there. Will Mizzou find a way to get that money to its athletes in our new, guardrail-ed era?
Duke hires Corey Muscara as baseball coach following Chris Pollard’s departure for Virginia
Associated Press DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Duke has hired Corey Muscara as its baseball coach. The school announced the move Thursday, a little more than a week after Chris Pollard left following 13 seasons to take over at Virginia. The Blue Devils reached four NCAA super regionals and won two Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament titles […]
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Duke has hired Corey Muscara as its baseball coach.
The school announced the move Thursday, a little more than a week after Chris Pollard left following 13 seasons to take over at Virginia. The Blue Devils reached four NCAA super regionals and won two Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament titles under Pollard.
Muscara had spent the past four seasons as an assistant at Wake Forest, which included the Demon Deacons’ trip to the College World Series in 2023. He worked with the pitching staff.
His previous coaching stops included Maryland and St. John’s.
___
AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports
Part of the reason the unregulated, Wild West era of NIL in college athletics had to go, we were told, was because that system was unsustainable. It seemed to be sustaining just fine at Missouri though. Via the Freedom of Information Act, the Columbia Missourian uncovered a treasure trove of documents related to Missouri’s NIL program, […]
Part of the reason the unregulated, Wild West era of NIL in college athletics had to go, we were told, was because that system was unsustainable. It seemed to be sustaining just fine at Missouri though.
Via the Freedom of Information Act, the Columbia Missourianuncovered a treasure trove of documents related to Missouri’s NIL program, giving perhaps the most unvarnished look at how college athletes were paid in the NIL era. Those documents were available because Missouri paid its athletes straight from the athletics department to the Tigers’ collective — Every True Tiger Brands, LLC — and the newspaper got ahold of invoices ETT sent to the university.
The headline figure was that Missouri spent $31.7 million on NIL within the past year — the vast majority going to football — but even that hardly tells the true story. In fact, Mizzou spent just shy of $25 million from January 2025 to June, including a whopping $10.279 million in June alone. This practice came to be known as “front-loading,” as Mizzou offloaded payments that likely would be denied by the new Deloitte-run NIL Go clearinghouse (whose legality has yet to be challenged). Mizzou also spent $4.647 million in January, a period that coincided with the football transfer portal, and $3.592 million in May, a period that coincided with the basketball portal.
To the original point above, the Missourian uncovered invoices dating back to September 2023, and the numbers generally rose over time, even before the House settlement and its consequences became a reality.
Broken into roughly 7-month periods, here’s how the money rose over time:
September 2023-April 2024: $794,171 average (High: $881K | Low: $662K) May 2024-November 2024: $1.64 million average (High: $1.872M | Low: $902K) December 2024-June 2025: $3.738 million average (High: $10.279M | Low: $1.211M)
Even removing the outlier of June 2025, Mizzou was still spending an average of $2.5 million per month on NIL during the last six months of the “unregulated” system.
As for how that money was spent, the Missourian found ETT paid nearly two-thirds of every dollar it was supplied on football ($8 million of the $12.4 million in total), with men’s basketball getting 23.5 percent, baseball just below 4 percent, women’s basketball just below 3 percent ($348,100 in real dollars) and on down to the tennis team, which received $100,000.
Like all SEC schools, Missouri will spend the full $20.5 million “salary cap” as allowed under the House settlement, with $18 million coming in actual dollars and $2.5 million in new scholarships counting toward the cap. Most observers anticipate football eating up 75 percent of the cap, but Georgia announced in February it will spend roughly 66 percent of its $20.5 million on football, in line with how Missouri distributed its NIL money.
The fight for the money football and men’s basketball does not consume will be real and vicious. At Mizzou, that likely manifests between baseball, women’s basketball and the rest of the Olympic sports. The Tigers endured a historically bad season on the diamond, complete with a last-place 3-27 record in conference play. Afterward, AD Laird Veatch, in announcing that he would not fire head coach Kerrick Jackson, said a “lack of support” explained the club’s performance.
“We have not invested at the level that we need to really be competitive in this league, and that sport in particular, it’s an incredibly competitive sport,” Veatch said. That support will likely come at the expense of Missouri’s other sports — but not football or men’s basketball.
To make up the gap, Mizzou — like every other school — will increase its efforts to generate outside sponsorships for its athletes.
“We’re going to need our businesses, our sponsors to really embrace that as part of the new era,” Veatch said. “It’s going to be on us as athletic departments (and) Learfield as our partner to continue to integrate those types of opportunities in meaningful ways for sponsors.”
As the numbers proved, the money to pay athletes simply for being Missouri Tigers was there. Will Mizzou find a way to get that money to its athletes in our new, guardrail-ed era?
College Quarterback Reveals Why He Rejected $8 Million NIL Deal
College Quarterback Reveals Why He Rejected $8 Million NIL Deal originally appeared on The Spun. Money isn’t everything for at least one of the SEC’s top quarterbacks. Following an impressive freshman season at South Carolina, Gamecocks QB LaNorris Sellers reportedly received several multi-million dollar NIL offers to enter the transfer portal — including a two-year, […]
College Quarterback Reveals Why He Rejected $8 Million NIL Deal originally appeared on The Spun.
Money isn’t everything for at least one of the SEC’s top quarterbacks.
Following an impressive freshman season at South Carolina, Gamecocks QB LaNorris Sellers reportedly received several multi-million dollar NIL offers to enter the transfer portal — including a two-year, $8 million contract. However, he turned it down.
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In a conversation with The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman, Sellers’ dad Norris revealed the lengths schools were willing to go to in an effort to poach his son out of Columbia. But he and his son wanted to keep the main thing the main thing.
“He was offered all kinds of crazy numbers,” Norris said. “I told him he could say, I’m gonna stay or I’m gonna go. By my two cents: It was to get into college on a scholarship, play ball, get our degree and go on about our business. This NIL deal came later. We didn’t come here to make money. We came here to get our education, play ball, and with schools calling, we’re not gonna jump ship because they’re offering more than what we’re getting. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Sellers threw for 2,534 yards with 25 total touchdowns and another 674 rushing yards on the ground in his first season as a full-time starter on the way to SEC Freshman of the Year honors.
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But as hard as it is for someone so young to turn down that kind of money, Sellers’ father says LaNorris never really entertained leaving SC.
“You’re 19,” he told his son. “You don’t need [$8 million]. You’re in a great spot. There were several talks, but it never really crossed his mind [to leave]. It’s a challenge with colleges offering younger guys that kind of money. Who’s gonna say no to $8 million for two years? They’re gonna be swayed if you don’t have the right people in your corner.”
Some have Sellers projected to be the top pick in the 2026 NFL Draft with how high expectations are for him in Year 2. And this kind of mindset could serve him well in the future when it comes to finding the right fit in the pros.
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Related: WNBA Player Levels Caitlin Clark With Blatant Cheap Shot
College Quarterback Reveals Why He Rejected $8 Million NIL Deal first appeared on The Spun on Jun 18, 2025
This story was originally reported by The Spun on Jun 18, 2025, where it first appeared.
‘Do They Truly Believe The Words?’ – CFB Analyst Slams College Sports Leaders’ Bold NIL Revenue Share Claims
The House vs NCAA settlement is sending shockwaves across college sports and one of its biggest conclusions was that athletes get a share of the University’s revenue. But one prominent voice in the industry isn’t buying the spin from college leaders that, from now on, revenue-sharing arrangements will be the new way. In his latest […]
The House vs NCAA settlement is sending shockwaves across college sports and one of its biggest conclusions was that athletes get a share of the University’s revenue. But one prominent voice in the industry isn’t buying the spin from college leaders that, from now on, revenue-sharing arrangements will be the new way.
In his latest Mailbag for The Athletic, college football analyst Stewart Mandel isn’t buying the idea that the NCAA and the newly minted College Sports Commission from the historic settlement could successfully implement a process limiting how much schools and athletes can spend or earn, all while staying on the right side of federal law.
“Do they truly believe the words coming out of their mouths?” Mandel wrote. “Pro athletes’ salaries only ever go up and up and up. College coaches’ salaries only ever go up and up and up. But we are to believe that the new College Sports Commission has devised a foolproof system to decrease college athletes’ compensation that is — how do you say it — legal?”
Mandel further explained his viewpoint, citing the attempts to cap college athletes’ compensation constitute illegal restraints of trade.
“Over the last dozen years, judges from across the political spectrum, including the nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, have found it to be an illegal restraint of trade for the NCAA’s membership to enforce policies that restrict athletes’ earnings,” Mandel added.
The House settlement levies a cap on how much a institution can spend ($20.5 million) to pay athletes along with a limit on third party NIL deals as well.
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Stewart Mandel cites Texas Tech’s current NIL situation to further his point on NIL deals
Stewart Mandel cited the example of Texas Tech and how are they going to get under the cap of $20.5 million after already committing to $55 million NIL deals for the upcoming school year. Mandel is not just brewing up random numbers. He confirmed the same through mega-booster Cody Campbell, telling his colleague Sam Khan.
Only two things can happen from here, as Mandel said:
“Either their payroll is going down by more than 60 percent a year from now, or, as I strongly suspect, a judge will have long since issued an injunction that ties the enforcers’ hands.”
It remains to be seen what further comes out of the situation as voices like Mandel are making sure no one buys into what he calls “a foolproof system” without asking.
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French league President accuses the NCAA of ‘looting’ talent with massive NIL deals
NIL deals are running rampant in the world of college sports. As it turns out, the interest is expanding overseas as universities target international players to come to their schools and play for their respective teams. Duke’s Dame Sarr and North Carolina’s Luka Bogavac are a couple of notable international players who are heading to […]
NIL deals are running rampant in the world of college sports.
As it turns out, the interest is expanding overseas as universities target international players to come to their schools and play for their respective teams.
Duke’s Dame Sarr and North Carolina’s Luka Bogavac are a couple of notable international players who are heading to the mainland to play at some of the top programs in college basketball.
As a result, Philippe Ausseur, the President of France’s National Basketball League, is not happy with universities making a run at international stars, per French reporter Yann Ohnana.
“Given the number of players approached, about fifteen of whom have signed up, we can call it looting. The colleges are casting their net wide, even in Pro B, and are dispossessing us of a certain number of our key players without us being able to react,” Ausseur said.
He also mentioned that the league has been aware of this trend, but the biggest shock was the massive amount in the reported deals.
“What took us by surprise were the amounts. We were expecting big contracts worth $350,000, but it’s $2 million…We were expecting half a dozen players to be approached, but it’s more than triple that…We’ve heard of agents trying to get clubs to sign certificates to demonstrate that their players are still amateurs. The situation remains unclear,” Ausseur said.
Ilias Kamardine is one French hoops star who decided to go and play for Ole Miss despite being a star in France.
With NIL expanding every year, it will become more and more difficult for other leagues to keep their players, especially with the cash flow they can receive and the exposure of playing at the college level.
