Fresh off an extra innings win over San Diego in their Santa Barbara Regional opener of the NCAA Tournament, the Oregon baseball team will play the host Gauchos Saturday night at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium.

The Ducks (38-18, 19-11 Pac-12) have played Santa Barbara already this season, suffering a series loss, two games to one, back in March at PK Park. Santa Barbara’s coach, Andrew Checketts, is a former Oregon assistant and pitching coach from 2008-10 and graduated from West Linn High School in 1994.

“You look back and run through scouting reports on what they pitched to you in the past and what their pitchers did,” Oregon outfielder Bryce Boettcher said. “But it’s later in the season and it’s obviously a new series, so you definitely learn from it, but we’ve got to come out hot this weekend.”

Follow along for updates as the Ducks take on the Gauchos.

Who are the announcers for Oregon baseball’s regional game against Santa Barbara?

• Broadcast team: Mark Neely and Greg Swindell

How to watch Oregon baseball vs. Santa Barbara in Saturday regional matchup

First pitch is set for 7 p.m. Saturday in Santa Barbara.

The game will can be streamed on ESPN+.

Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football, volleyball, women’s basketball and baseball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at adietz@registerguard.com and you can follow him on X @AlecDietz.

School districts throughout Oregon are facing massive budget shortfalls, leading to big cuts.

School districts have blamed these shortfalls on declining enrollment, inflation, the end of emergency COVID money for schools, increasing special education enrollment and inadequate state funding.

Superintendents for four school districts — Salem-Keizer, Portland, Bend-La Pine and Medford — recently released a video asking the state to reconsider its funding formula.

Speaking on JPR’s Jefferson Exchange on Wednesday, Bend-La Pine Superintendent Steve Cook acknowledged that the district has given much-needed cost of living adjustments to staff.

But he said the way that school districts calculate costs is different from how the state makes those funding calculations.

“It isn’t necessarily that we’re saying ‘fix the problem that we’ve created.’ We’re saying we want to draw attention to the fact that right now, there are decisions being made without all of the accurate and exact funding conversations being talked about,” he said.

Oregon’s 2 largest school districts are nearing the end of a fraught budget season

For example, Cook and Medford Superintendent Bret Champion said the state does not adequately consider cost of living adjustments or how expensive it is to live in Oregon in its funding.

“It isn’t necessarily that the entire formula is broken. There’s some tweaks that we believe that can be made. And we believe that coming into the conversation with an open mindset about the true costs and what it takes to live here [is important,]” Cook said.

Bend-La Pine is cutting $21 million from its budget over the next two years, including about 60 positions this year, which Cook said will be accomplished through attrition, resignations and retirements.

In 2023, the state legislature allocated $10.2 billion in school funding for the biennium, the most ever.

But according to the Oregon Department of Education’s Quality Education Commission, the state has consistently failed to give enough funding for schools to provide a quality education.

Medford School District approves budget cuts amid $15 million shortfall

The Medford School District is also facing a $15 million budget shortfall over the next two years.

Their budget for the upcoming school year cuts over 32 positions, and Champion said the budget for the following school year will be even worse.

“The school year after that, we’re done with the easier cuts. It’s going to be a dramatic change in service levels if we end up having to cut another $7.5 million in the next school year,” he said.

In addition, the Ashland School District will lay off about 19 staff at the end of this school year.

Oregon is forecast to see some wild weather swings between very wet and very hot over the coming week as summer gets underway with a bang.

‘Atmospheric river’ to hammer valley, mountains

The National Weather Service expects 1 to 1.5 inches of rain in the Willamette Valley, and 2 to 3 inches in the mountains, from Sunday into Tuesday. Upward of 4 inches could fall in parts of the Columbia River Gorge.

NWS meteorologist Daniel Hartsock said the amount of rain was unusual for early June and was coming from an “atmospheric river” of moisture off the Pacific Ocean. Typically, the Willamette Valley gets about 1.5 to 1.7 inches of rain for the entire month of June.

“It’s definitely unusual to get a month’s worth of rain in two days, but it’s also not unheard of,” he said. “We’ve had one or two day periods like this in the past, but I wouldn’t say it happens very often.”

Major heatwave could hit 90 or even 100 degrees

The weather is set to dry out and warm up by midweek, and then temperatures are forecast to rise rapidly.

Hartsock said Friday brought the best chance to see 90 degree weather in western Oregon, and there was even a 10% chance of temperatures cracking 100. The forecast could change over the coming week, but chances appear very likely to bring the warmest temperatures of the season by next weekend.

“I’d say that east of the Cascades we have an even better chance of really warm temperatures,” Hartsock said.

Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 16 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. Urness is the author of “Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon” and “Hiking Southern Oregon.” He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on X at @ZachsORoutdoors.