The home stretch of the college baseball regular season is upon us, and every game matters for the Oregon Ducks. Coming off a road series win at Illinois, the Ducks traveled to Corvallis and took down their bitter rival, No. 6 Oregon State, on Wednesday.The win evened the season series between the rivals, but the Ducks and Beavers won't be seeing each other on the diamond again during the regular season. Both programs were scheduled to play at the new Hillsboro Hops Ballpark on April 14 in a game billed as the "Northwest Elite Baseball Classic," but rain in the forecast and a tragic accident involving an Oregon State pitcher resulted in the game being postponed.According to James Crepea of The Oregonian, Mark Wasikowski was "willing to cancel games against some teams to be able to play" the Beavers one more time.
The Ducks might view the rivalry as worth the risk to pursue a spot as a host of a regional. The Ducks bumped their RPI up to No. 22 with a 7-3 win over the Beavers in Corvallis, and another notch in their belt over the top-10 program could place the Ducks in a good spot before a tough end to the regular season schedule.Since the game in Hillsboro has been canceled, all fans who purchased tickets will be refunded in full.It's still possible that the Ducks and Beavers wind up facing off again this year, but during the postseason. D1Baseball's latest projected field of 64, which was released before Oregon's midweek win, has Oregon State hosting a regional in Corvallis as the No. 10 overall seed, and the Ducks are projected to be the No. 2 seed in the regional.
Whether the game is in Eugene or Corvallis, the rivals could find themselves in the same regional in the postseason.The Ducks will host Penn State this weekend at PK Park. Waskikowski needed to use 10 pitchers in the midweek matchup with the Beavers, so the Ducks could be short on pitching entering the series against the 12-win Nittany Lions.Contact/Follow @Ducks_Wire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oregon Ducks news, notes, and opinions.This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: Oregon and Oregon State come to decision on postponed baseball matchup