A challenge, right off the bat

Oregon coach George Horton summed up his first five years as the Ducks’ head coach in simple baseball terms.

"We’ve left the bases loaded," he said Thursday.

After a 13-40 start in 2009, Horton has averaged more than 40 wins in each of the past four seasons, advancing to three regionals and earning two national seeds.

The only knock on his tenure so far is he hasn’t led the Ducks to a College World Series after making it six times in 11 years at Cal State Fullerton. Oregon lost in a regional final to Rice last season and came up two runs short in a super regional two years ago, losing two one-run games to Kent State in a best-of-three series.

"With all of the great things that have happened, that’s the one glaring thing that I hold myself responsible for," said Horton, who won a national championship with the Titans in 2004. "I don’t know if we’ve earned the distinction of being a perennially (top-ranked) team just yet. I think some of the accolades that have come our way come because of my tenure at Fullerton."

Nonetheless, Oregon is ranked in the top 11 in all of the major polls and as high as sixth by Collegiate Baseball and seventh by USA Today heading into Friday night’s season opener against Hawaii at Les Murakami Stadium.

The Ducks were dealt a big blow last month when sophomore left-hander Cole Irvin suffered an elbow injury. He had Tommy John surgery earlier this week.

Irvin, who set an Oregon freshman record with 12 wins last season, was set to be the team’s opening-night starter. That honor now belongs to junior lefty Tommy Thorpe, who allowed seven hits in five innings against the Rainbow Warriors last season.

Thorpe pitched out of the bullpen in three of the four games in Hawaii in 2012.

"We lost Cole but we still like our pitching," Horton said. "Everybody has to jump up one spot and any time you lose a potential All-American it’s a big hole, but we’ve got good arms."

Hawaii won 12 of the first 15 matchups against Oregon but has lost the past seven, including a four-game sweep to open last year.

Despite that, coach Mike Trapasso is still happy to open every year hosting the Ducks.

"I think they’re the most well-coached team in college baseball and now you throw in the fact that talent-wise, they are at the top of college baseball, so right out of the gate they are going to challenge you and expose the things that you need to work on," Trapasso said.

Hawaii opens its 31st season at Les Murakami Stadium looking to greatly improve its 16-35 record from a year ago.

UH will have as many as seven returning starters in its opening-day lineup and will start senior Matt Cooper, who was 3-2 with a 2.25 ERA at home last season.

Newcomers Marcus Doi and Jordan Richartz are being counted on to improve a UH offense that hit just .239 last year and finished in the bottom 10 in the country in average, home runs and stolen bases.

Hawaii, picked to finish sixth in its second season in the Big West Conference, is 31-12 all-time in season openers, 8-4 under Trapasso.