Oregon Softball Sweeps Penn State in Big Ten Opener With Walk-Off Win

Emma Cox stood in the batter's box with a full count, one out, and the tying run at third in the bottom of the seventh inning Sunday at Jane Sanders Stadium. She lifted a pitch to right field, Elon Butler scored standing up, and No. 18 Oregon had its walk-off: a 6-5 victory that completed a three-game sweep of Penn State to open Big Ten conference play.

"Those are really fun moments that you always dream of when you're a little girl," Cox said of her final at-bat. "And it was fun. I took a moment to look around and be like, 'Ok, this is fun, like, I'm ready for this moment.'"

The sweep was anything but clean on Sunday. Oregon committed a season-high four errors and surrendered a lead it had held since the first inning when Penn State catcher Brooke Klosowicz launched a two-out grand slam off Oregon ace Lyndsey Grein in the top of the fifth, turning a 3-0 Ducks advantage into a 4-3 deficit. Klosowicz had worked back from an 0-2 count, taking the battle to the 12th pitch before sending it over the fence in left-center.

Oregon answered with two runs in the bottom of the sixth to retake the lead, but Penn State tied the game again with a run in the top of the seventh. The Ducks then pieced together the walk-off sequence methodically: Butler reached on an error to lead off the bottom of the inning, Amari Harper drew a walk, Rylee McCoy executed a sacrifice bunt to move both runners, and Cox delivered with the sac fly. It was Cox's second RBI of the day, and Butler's second run.

Stefani Ma'ake anchored Oregon's offense in the Sunday finale, going 3-for-the-team's-7 hits with a double, two RBIs and a run. Butler, who had dominated the first two games of the series, went 0-for-3 with a walk on Sunday but had been 5-for-7 with eight RBIs, four runs, three home runs and a double across Friday and Saturday.

Those first two games were lopsided by comparison. Oregon opened the series March 13 with an 8-2 victory, then dispatched Penn State 10-1 the following afternoon in five innings. That Saturday game was finished in roughly 90 minutes.

"It was a tough game for us," coach Melyssa Lombardi said of Sunday. "There's just some things that didn't go our way today and I think this group could've tapped out because it didn't go our way, but we just continued to fight and not be bothered by what happened."

The sweep pushed Oregon to 21-7 overall and 3-0 in Big Ten play, with Penn State falling to 19-9. The Ducks have now won 14 of their last 15 games while defending the 2025 Big Ten regular-season title they claimed in their conference debut. Since joining the Big Ten, Oregon has gone 22-3 in regular-season conference play and won all nine of its Big Ten series, according to the Register-Guard.

"I think this team is getting hot at the right time," Lombardi said.

Oregon heads out next on a two-week road trip to the Midwest before returning to Eugene.