Historic WSU baseball season comes to end with 10-1 loss to Oregon State at Eugene Regional

May 31-Whenever this Washington State team gets a chance to reflect on its first postseason in about a decade and a half, whenever the Cougars find the time to ponder the way their weekend unfolded, they will likely come back to one theme.

Offensive production.

Or lack thereof.

That cost WSU a 10-1 loss to Oregon State in Sunday's Eugene Regional game, ending a historic season for the Cougars, who generated only four total runs in their three NCAA Tournament games this weekend. WSU ends the season at 31-28 overall.

"I'm really proud of them," said WSU coach Nathan Choate, who took the Cougars to the postseason in his third year at the helm of the program, in a postgame radio interview. "They need to walk off the field with their heads pretty high. I think they raised the standard and the expectation for what we need to do here in the baseball program, so super proud of them."

In a Friday win over OSU, WSU put up three runs in a narrow victory, advancing to Saturday's semifinals. The Cougars were shut out by host school Oregon in that one. That sent the Cougs to Sunday's loser-out game, where they posted only one run, which came from an RBI double from freshman outfielder Trevor Smith.

Perhaps the most glaring issue was their strikeouts. In Sunday's game, WSU went down on strikes 11 total times, including nine against OSU starter Trey Morris, who allowed six hits in 6 2/3 innings. Even when the Beavers turned to reliever Tanner Douglas, things didn't get much easier for the Cougars, who struck out twice against him as well.

That was also the theme of Saturday's game, when Oregon piled up 19 strikeouts against WSU, which hung in the game until the Ducks used a ninth-inning blast to blow things open. Even in the Cougars' one win this weekend, their second of the season over the Beavers, they didn't generate a hit until the fifth inning. They met the same fate a day later.

In those games, WSU was squarely in things because of its starting pitchers, Nick Lewis against Oregon State and Luke Meyers against Oregon, both of whom pitched well and pitched deep into their games. The Cougars didn't have the same fortune Sunday with starter Griffin Smith, who permitted four runs on five hits in just two innings, departing when OSU led off the third inning with a single.

With that, things turned into a bullpen game for the Cougs, who saw things slip away when the Beavs plated four runs in the third frame. Those came against WSU reliever August Richie, who recorded just one out. The rest of the game played out fairly evenly, but because WSU couldn't manage much offense, the club didn't get chances to climb back into the game.

Where does that leave the Cougars? In truth, they accomplished a ton this spring. In their second and final season as affiliate members, they won the Mountain West Conference tournament, punching their ticket to this Eugene Regional, their first NCAA Tournament since 2010. At the time, many of these Cougs were only a few years old.

On the first day of this regional, WSU sprung an upset on Oregon State, a perennial national power that finished the regular season ranked No. 7 in the country. Lewis shone in that game, powering past the century mark in pitches to polish off the finest outing of his career. That was the Cougs' second win over the Beavers this year, following their victory in the regular season.

As the new Pac-12 prepares to launch this summer, WSU will have to bid farewell to this season, to the Mountain West. If this season was any indication, though, the Cougars have more promising hellos in their future.

"I'm not gonna let you get me emotional, man," Choate said with a laugh. "Like I told them, you don't cry because it's over, you smile because it happened. Just really fortunate to have coached them. It was a pleasure to be around them, great young men, and just really thankful and grateful for everything they've done."

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This story was originally published May 31, 2026 at 7:12 PM.