EUGENE — Oregon baseball’s season finale with No. 1 UCLA was cancelled due to rain, marking a dreary end to another inauspicious season that leaves the future of coach George Horton in peril.
The teams went through pregame warmups and the Ducks recognized their departing seniors at PK Park before the game was called off without the teams taking the field.
Pac-12 champion UCLA (47-8, 24-5 Pac-12) will await its seeding in the NCAA Tournament during Sunday’s selection show.
Oregon (27-29, 10-19 Pac-12), which lost its last six Pac-12 series to finish ninth place in the Pac-12, worst since baseball returned to UO in 2009, had its second straight losing season and fourth straight missing the NCAA Tournament. The Ducks finished in the bottom four of the Pac-12 in nearly every major statistic, including eighth in both fielding and earned run average and 10th in team batting average.
UO is 373-278-1 during the 11-year tenure of coach George Horton, whose future is now in the hands of Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens.
Horton, 65, is under contract for $500,000 annually through June 30 and has a mutual option with UO for 2019-20. UO must notify Horton of its intentions for next year by June 16. If Oregon intends to exercise its option, Horton has until June 30 to decide whether or not to do the same.
Through a spokesman, Horton declined interviews after the game.
Horton led the Ducks to five NCAA Regionals and one Super Regional appearance from 2010-15, but the program stagnated over the last four years, finishing no better than eighth in the Pac-12 and with a losing record in the conference each season, and attendance at PK Park slid dramatically.