How Oregon Baseball Coach Mark Wasikowski Changed Ducks' Postseason Trajectory

The Oregon Ducks baseball team is ascending with much thanks to coach Mark Wasikowski. His team reveals how they've impacted them during Oregon's surprising postseason run to the Super Regionals. Can Coach Waz lead the Ducks to their first College World Series appearance in nearly 70 seasons?

Oregon baseball coach Mark Wasikowski joins his team before their home opener against the Lafayette Leopards at PK Park in Eugene Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. / Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard / USA

The Oregon Ducks baseball team is ascending with much thanks to coach Mark Wasikowski.  Wasikowski took over in 2020 and has turned Oregon’s program around quickly, leading the Ducks into the NCAA Tournament for an impressive four straight seasons. 

Coach Waz is beloved in the Eugene community and respected by his players. The Ducks have not made the Men’s College World Series in nearly 70 seasons but if anyone knows how to get to Omaha, it’s Coach Waz. Wasikowski is a former third basemen who won the 1992 College World Series with the Pepperdine Waves. He led Pepperdine with 18 doubles that season in which the Waves went a perfect 4-0 in the CWS to win the title. 

Oregon baseball coach Mark Wasikowski joins his team before their home opener against the Lafayette Leopards at PK Park in Eugene Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. / Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard / USA

Coach Waz has passed a strong mindset and deep education of the game to Ducks players during his five years at Oregon, with possibly the biggest impact this season. 

Oregon Ducks outfielder and slugger Bryce Boettcher believes Coach Waz has changed the trajectory of this postseason run for the Ducks.

"I love his intensity,” Boettcher told Oregon SI’s Bri Amaranthus. “He has this saying – he calls it, The Game Knows. During my freshman and sophomore year it definitely took me a while to figure out what that meant.” 

Now a senior, The Game Knows is wisdom from Wasikowski that Boettcher lives by. The meaning? The small details that happen throughout a baseball game add up and always come back in a form of karma. Getting a bad first step in early innings might equate to a dropped fly ball in later innings. If the umpire wrongly calls a slightly fair ball foul, instead of getting frustrated, Boettcher thinks, The Game Knows, and then is not surprised when later in the game, a call will goes his way. 

“Who knows when something's going to go good for you or something's going to go bad for you, depending on what happened previously in the game,” Boettcher told Amaranthus. “So you always got to be on it. That's my favorite thing about (Coach Waz) - he's always like about the little details at the end of the day.” 

The details will matter this weekend, as the Ducks and Texas A&M Aggies will battle in a best-of-three series in the College Station Super Regional, with the winner punching a ticket to Omaha for the 2024 Men's College World Series. Oregon is massive underdogs and will play in one of the most hostile college baseball environments in the country at Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park against the Aggies. 

“If you're always about the little details and you're always locked in on those things throughout a long season, they pay off,” Boettcher told Amaranthus. “I think, honestly, that's a big part of why we've had success in the postseason - We're always about those little details in those clutch games… Those little details matter.”

Game one begins on Saturday, June 8 at 11a.m. PDT.