College baseball notebook: Oregon, UCLA and Washington win inaugural Big Ten series on the road

Three of the four West Coast schools came out of their inaugural Big Ten series happy. Southern California, not so much.

Oregon ran its win streak to 11 games with a road sweep of USC, which has lost five straight since it knocked off nationally ranked Vanderbilt.

UCLA made the 2,300-mile trip to Maryland and won two of three. Washington went to Nebraska and also won two of three.

Oregon’s Mason Neville hit his eighth homer of the season on the second pitch of Friday’s 7-2 victory over the Trojans and went deep again in Sunday’s 5-3 win.

UCLA, after losing 13-3 on the run rule Saturday, scored all of its runs in the second inning in an 11-5 win Sunday. The Bruins had nine hits in the 11-run inning, with Mulivai Levu homering for the second time in the series.

Washington swept a doubleheader over the Cornhuskers on Saturday. Braeden Terry hit a three-run homer in a five-run first inning in the 11-5 win, and Malakhi Knight and Blake Wilson went deep in a 6-3 win.

The top three teams in the D1Baseball.com and Baseball America polls remained the same Monday. All went 5-0 last week.

LSU (16-1), Tennessee (16-0) and Arkansas (15-1) are 1-2-3 by D1Baseball. Tennessee, LSU and Arkansas are 1-2-3 by Baseball America.

Defending national champion Tennessee heads into SEC play with a three-game home series against Florida after sweeping St. Bonaventure, which was picked to finish last in the Atlantic 10.

The Volunteers’ 16-0 start is the best in program history, and their considerable talent on the mound and at the plate were on full display against the Bonnies.

Liam Doyle and four relievers combined on a no-hitter - the program’s first since 2002 - in Friday’s 12-0 win. Manny Marin’s grand slam Saturday ended an 11-1 win in the seventh on the run rule. It was the Vols’ eighth slam of the season. The Vols hit five home runs in a 13-2 win Sunday and finished with 11 in the three games to increase their nation-leading total to 49.

Stanford finished its inaugural ACC road trip in impressive fashion Sunday with Joey Volchko, Aidan Keenan and Toran O'Harran combining to allow six hits and strike out 14 in a 7-0 series-clinching win over North Carolina.

The Cardinal won a series over a top-five opponent for the first time since taking two of three from Oregon State in April 2022. Stanford was the first team to shut out North Carolina in Chapel Hill since 2020 and the first ACC opponent to do it since 2019.

California, the other West Coast ACC newcomer, dropped two of three games at Duke.

Oklahoma State responded with a vengeance after losing the first game of its home series with Illinois State. The Redbirds’ 12-6 win Friday marked their first victory over a ranked opponent in two years. Saturday’s game was postponed because of weather concerns. The Cowboys came back Sunday to sweep a doubleheader 16-1 and 18-1. Colin Brueggemann was 5 for 6 with two homers and seven RBIs in the two games and Nolan Schubart had four hits and seven RBIs.

Arizona, coming off a sweep of Pepperdine, has won 11 of its last 12 games and its 8-0 home record is its best since the 2018 team won its first 10 home games. … LSU’s sweep of North Alabama ran the Tigers’ win streak to 11 games, their longest since winning 13 straight in 2023. … TCU has had to come from behind in nine of its 12 wins. The Horned Frogs erased four-run deficits in wins over Fresno State Saturday and Sunday. … Kennesaw State’s 13-9 win over West Virginia on Saturday marked the first loss of the season for the Mountaineers, whose 13-0 start was their best since 1964. … Arkansas has won 11 straight and is 15-1 for its best 16-game start since 2006. … Penn State posted its first series win over Indiana since 2008 and won its opening Big Ten series for the first time since 2014.