Mailbag: The Oregon women aren't just here to look around
On the Big Ten champs, the U.S. Open Cup, Portland baseball names and Oregon's recovery from the Rose Bowl.
We have a great mailbag today, filled with answers to questions about the Open Cup, what the Ducks learned from the Rose Bowl, and where my allegiances may lie should Portland ever actually get a baseball team.
But I want to start today’s post with the best program Oregon has at the moment — the Women’s golf team.
The Ducks are fresh off the Big Ten Championships, where Oregon dominated its way to its second conference title in program history. Trailing by three strokes entering the final round, the No. 5 Ducks shot a 12-under 276 to win by 14. Kiara Romero won the individual title at 7-under par, which set the table for her being named the conference’s golfer of the year on Monday.
With three Ducks — Romero, Karen Tsuru and Suvichaya Vinijchaitham — being named to the Big Ten’s first team and freshman Tong An earning a spot on the second team, it came as no surprise that Derek Radley, in his seventh year with the Ducks, was named the Big Ten’s coach of the year.
As you would imagine, it’s been a fun one for Radley.
I met with him earlier this spring to talk about Romero, the rockstar of Oregon’s roster. But the Ducks were just coming off a win at the Alice & John Wallace Classic, a tournament where Oregon blistered the field by 23 strokes with Vinijchaitham claiming the individual title, Romero tying for second and Karen Tsuru finishing fourth. On the final day of competition, all four of Oregon’s scoring players shot in the 60s.
Radley proudly sported the tournament’s trophy on his desk. He’s rarely been more proud of an entire group of athletes.
“You know, as a coach, you just sit back and try to enjoy it,” Radley said. “You strive so hard to try and get it that way, you recruit and you build teams and just hope that it comes together in a special way. And this year has been really, really special, man.”
Radley’s group is young — all starters are underclassmen— and Radley’s group is driven. During the recruitment process, Radley said one of his favorite questions is asking whether or not a potential Duck wants to play professionally.
“If they say, ‘Hey Coach, I want to be on Tour,’ that’s our kid,” Radley said.
Hired in 2018 after helping lead Arizona to a national championship as an assistant, Radley has overseen the rise of a program that reached the final round of the national championship in 2022 and the semifinal in 2024.
On paper, Radley’s Ducks in 2025 have as good a chance as any of his past teams at claiming Oregon’s first national championship — and he said they’ve been putting in more work off the course because of that, with Radley specifically crediting the addition of sports psychologist Dr. S.H. Moon.
“I’ve been forcing our athletes to go see her regularly so that come postseason, there’s nothing new and we have strategies to manage that pressure,” Radley said.
Fresh off their Big Ten Tournament win, the No. 5 Ducks’ route back to the National Championships begins in the NCAA Gold Canyon Regional in Arizona on May 5, where they’ll need at least a top-five finish in the 12-team field to clinch a spot in the national championships.
“Winning is fun. It just makes it better. It checks the boxes that we’re doing the right thing,” Radley said. “We’re young, that’s the one piece of the puzzle that we need to learn and mature. But we really are talented. So it’s just believing in each other. This is my 13th season of coaching women’s golf, and the culture of this, our starting five, is really fun and really special. I think they have a lot of respect for each other and they all want to play professional golf someday. So they push each other. I don’t have to get on them to do anything special. It’s just a part of continuing to mature for those big times that are going to come later this season.”
Those big times are here. Now, onto the mailbag.
The Ducks were annihilated in the Rose Bowl. How has the coaching staff dissected that and what changes are they making to avoid that in the future? — Jim Armstrong
Look, sometimes you just get beat.
And man, the Ducks really got beat in the Rose Bowl. Ohio State’s 8.8 yards per play was the highest against Oregon all season and the Buckeyes made it look easy from the start, racing out to a 34-0 lead before the Ducks could blink.
It was shocking. It was demoralizing. It was last season.
That last part has been the message throughout this spring.
“I think life is all about experiences,” Oregon coach Dan Lanning said. “Every day we walk out here and we learn and we grow. You have to learn from wins and you have to learn from losses. We certainly learned from that one. But this is a new season, too. That has no impact on our next season. All the wins we had last year, they have absolutely no impact on this next season, either. It’s really about focusing on what’s next and continuing to improve.”
I think it’s a fair point by Lanning. Let’s not forget, Oregon did win its first 13 games of the season before running into a buzzsaw of an Ohio State roster that put a country-high 14 players into last week’s NFL Draft.
There was a lot of good. There was one very, very bad.
I think it’s also fair to say that Lanning and his staff didn’t do a good enough job in preparing their team for the moment.
And while he’s not one to come out and give away how he’s going to fix that problem, Lanning did let the public into his mindset of how that challenge motivates him.
“There are things they did in that game that we did not prepare our players well for. That’s the part — can you take the medicine? Can you figure out what didn’t go right?” Lanning said on the Bussin’ With the Boys podcast. “But if you’re motivated the right way, those are growth moments. That’s a chance to say I’m going to go out there and improve.
“I wake up every night about that medicine. We struggled early on beating Washington when I first started here and we were able to get over that hump. We were able to beat them this past season. Right now, I wake up thinking about that Rose Bowl game. Didn’t do it the way I wanted to do it, so it motivates me. It makes me hungry to go back to work.”
Theoretically, if Portland were to get an MLB team (forget the likelihood of that for a second) how do you think that would affect your relationship with the Mariners? Would Portland become your team, root for both? Thanks! — Tyler
I truly don’t know, Tyler.
Fandom for me is about connection. I was driving home from Seattle this weekend listening to the Mariners’ game on the radio, and while, sure, I really dig Cal Raleigh and find Randy Arozarena to be downright fun, I can’t say I knew the names of some of the guys in the lineup or coming out of the bullpen. I’m not that type of fan these days.
But what works for me is the voice of Rick Rizzs. When Raleigh blasted a first-inning home run and Rizzs screamed, “Goodbye, baseball!” like he has throughout every summer of my life, there’s a level of familiarity and nostalgia there that I’m not sure can be replaced. It made for a lovely drive.
With that being said, I love this city. I love it when this city is passionate about something. I love it when this city gets a winner. And I think it would be hard as hell to be at a game with friends and family and not develop some sort of connection.
In a neutral world, Portland would end up in the National League and it would be easy to root for both. But I also think MLB would be foolish not to try and establish Portland as a rival to Seattle in the same division.
It sure works in soccer.
The Timbers play LA Galaxy away this coming weekend. Does this seem like a trap game to you given the Galaxy's horrible form? Or am I just being a worrier?
Also, the Timbers play Tacoma Defiance in the Open Cup on May 6. It's not Seattle, but it's as close as you can get without it being the Sounders. AND it will be played at Starfire, the home of the infamous Red Card Wedding. It's all a bit spicier than you'd expect for a Round of 32 Open Cup match. What are your expectations? — David Beffert
I feel like the Timbers will come shot out of a cannon against the Galaxy, then maybe stumble for a minute mid-game before sealing things up late. If I were a betting man, I’d go heavy on Antony and assists.
OK. OK. Apologies for coming in late here, so let’s dive into your second question.
What are my expectations for the Open Cup opener in Tacoma?
Well, I’ve Googled the Red Card Wedding and am now familiar with the ridiculousness of that second half — can we acknowledge that all of that was precluded by the Sounders randomly changing kits at the break?
My expectations are through the roof.
I’ve covered one match at Starfire in my career — a 2013 Thorns/Reign season finale that saw Christine Sinclair beat Seattle 2 goals to 1 in front of 3,855 fans. It’s a small stadium. It’s quaint. And I remember thinking it was pretty cool to be that close to the star power of the match — Sinclair, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe and Hope Solo were all some of the biggest names in their sport at the time.
Can I say I know how well a good MLS Next Pro team like Tacoma matches up against a good MLS team like Portland? No, but I would assume the Timbers shouldn’t have a whole lot of trouble, despite it being yet another road match for the club.
I see it as a good opportunity for the Timbers to get players such as Dario Zuparic, Zac McGraw, Ariel Lassiter and Maxime Crepeau some needed minutes before coming back home to face Sporting Kansas City on three days of rest.
Jurrion Dickey arrived at Oregon with much fanfare as a prized recruit. Where is he in his development process? With a new WR coach in place, does he see more time on the field this season? — Paul Berardi