Life on the Bubble, by Casey Mitchell

This is Casey Mitchell guest blogging for ST today. With the Oregon basketball team sitting squarely on the bubble, they stepped up in a huge win over Colorado. It was an offensive explosion at Matthew Knight Arena, in a 90-81 win. Senior guard, Devoe Joseph, led all scoring with 24 points along with another great performance by Garrett Sim with 19. The Ducks lost an earlier meeting against the Buffaloes in a 72-71 thriller in Colorado. With the victory, the Ducks are now 21-8 and tied for third place in the conference with Arizona. Seeding will be huge in the upcoming Pac-12 Tournament that starts March 7. The top four teams in the conference will earn a first round bye that could improve any one's chances of making the NCAA Tourney. Oregon takes on Utah tomorrow at 3:00 in Eugene in the regular season finale.

Ducks baseball is nothing to be sneezed at either. They are now 7-1 after sweeping 17th ranked Vanderbilt in Nashville Tennessee. Sitting at 18, the Ducks have cracked the top 25 for the first time since the beginning of last season. The Oregon bats' are on fire, averaging over 7.6 runs per game in their first eight. When you hit like that, you don't need the best pitching staff in the country, and I think ours is pretty good as well. They are set to play Long Beach St. today at 6 pm at PK Park. I know that it's early in the season and we haven't even entered conference play yet, but so far I'm liking what I'm seeing.

Over in Baker City, the 1A State Championships are going on. Being a McKenzie student, it is very exciting to see our team in the trophy hunt once again. After the win over Rogue Valley last night the Eagles, now 28-0, are in the semi-finals for the second year in a row. Last year they were 27-0 in the semis, but lost to Siletz Valley Charter, who ended up winning it all. Today we look to take revenge on the Sherman Huskies (the team that knocked us out of the 1A Football Playoffs this year) and make it to the finals to take home what is rightfully ours.