College baseball series of the week: No. 10 UCLA vs. No. 16 Oregon

It's the latter half of the season in college baseball which means it's about time for teams to start solidifying their resumes for the postseason.

While some squads are fighting to make it to the NCAA tournament, others are fighting to secure bids that could give them the right to host a regional or super regional come June.

This week is a battle of two teams looking to show why they are capable of hosting postseason play as the No. 10 UCLA Bruins take a trip up the west coast to Eugene, Oregon to take on the 16th ranked Ducks in a pivotal weekend series between PAC-12 rivals.

Whoops. The Big Ten that is.

One of the most overlooked points of the Big Ten’s cross country expansion was the fact that the conference’s baseball product improved by leaps and bounds compared to where they were.

All four teams have found some sort of success whether it was as recent as last year, last decade, or historically speaking. The number of teams to have won a national championship in the conference doubled from three to six with the addition of the fresh faces as well.

All four newcomers also occupy the four of the top six positions with UCLA sitting on top of the podium while Oregon is third with Iowa between them.

The Bruins have not lost a conference series since joining the Big Ten while Oregon has only lost one, which was to Ohio State last month.

The Ducks can take solace in the fact that they have found the win column more recently as they defeated Georgetown 12-1 on Monday while UCLA was handled by No. 6 Oregon State 7-1.

Both teams also are in the top part of the conference in team stats both offensively and defensively.

The Ducks and Bruins are tied at 314 runs scored in their games this season but Oregon has a slightly better team batting average as they sit at a .301 clip while UCLA is just two points lower at .299.

The Bruins have better pitching in terms of ERA as they are sitting at 4.32 while Oregon is just below them at 4.37. They are just below Iowa at second and third in the conference in that statistic.

The big difference between the two is power hitting.

Oregon leads the Big Ten in home runs and is 11th nationally as they have put 61 balls over the fence this season.

Mason Neville is second in all of Division I with 17 long balls and leads the Ducks as well.

While UCLA may not have bats that are as powerful as Oregon’s, they still have plenty of dangerous guys in their lineup as well.

One of them is Roch Cholowsky who is hitting .366 which is the sixth best in of all Big Ten hitters. He has 49 hits which is one less than his teammate Mulivai Levu as they are eighth and ninth in that category.

Pitching is going to play a pivotal role in this series to see what offensive style will get shut down over this weekend set.

First pitch from Eugene, Oregon is set for 8:05 p.m. on Friday night.

Chase Fisher is a first-year student majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, please email ctf5198@psu.edu.