Cougars Make Final Four It Was Inevitable, However, As Departures Of Gu And Portland Left WSU Baseball With Just Three Division Rivals

If familiarity does, indeed, breed contempt, there is bound to be a bunch of testy young men kicking dirt around on Pacific-10 Conference baseball fields by the time the North Division settles its title race next month.

“Obviously, we’re going to know the other teams very well when all is said is done,” said second-year Washington State coach Steve Farrington, whose defending champion Cougars finally open league play at 2 this afternoon at Portland State.

The problem here is that Gonzaga and Portland bolted to the West Coast Conference at the end of the 1995 season, leaving the Pac-10 North with four teams and a short, but intensive, late-starting league schedule that crams 24 games into the final five weeks of the regular season.

The division champion takes on the South Division winner on the road in a best-of-3 playoff series to determine the Pac-10’s automatic NCAA qualifier.

But to get there, WSU, Oregon State, Portland State and Washington will have to dig up enough strong, healthy arms to withstand four-game series each weekend from now until May 12.

Each North Division team will play the other three eight times in a pair of home-and-away series. The format calls for a single game Friday afternoon, followed by a Saturday doubleheader and another single game on Sunday.

“It’s nice to have a route (to the NCAAs),” Farrington said of the new setup, “but you’re obviously going to find out who has pitching depth and who doesn’t. And if you’re one of the teams that doesn’t, you’d better be able to swing the bats well enough to hide the fact that you don’t.”

In his first season at WSU last spring, Farrington guided the Cougars to a 28-30 record that included an 18-12 mark in the Pac-10 North and two losses to South champion Southern California in the postseason playoffs.

This year Farrington stepped up his schedule by taking an early week-long trip to Hawaii and making road treks to Arizona, Stanford, Pepperdine and Long Beach State.

The Cougars played their first 30 games on the road before nipping Lewis-Clark State 2-1 in 12 innings in Wednesday’s long-awaited Bailey Field home opener.

All of the traveling took a toll on WSU’s record, which is 11-20. But Farrington is convinced his team will benefit from its ambitious non-conference schedule.

“We wanted to get out of the fire on the road and play,” said Farrington, who has six starters and 19 lettermen back from last year’s team. “We’ve actually got 13 seniors, but several of them are (redshirt) transfers who waited a year to play.

“We were old, but young and new, and the reasons we went on the road so much and started so early (Jan. 19) were to learn something and to get the same start South teams get.”

The only downside Farrington noticed about his schedule upgrade was a brief confidence lapse during a 12-game losing streak that included four one-run losses.

But he has seen signs of improvement in that area and hopes that being back closer to home will heal lingering wounds.

“We’re playing pretty well right now,” he said. “We’re more confident - which was a concern with all of the one-run losses. We’re swinging the bat and we’ve had better pitching of late. My only concern this week is that we’ll press and try to do too much as hitters and pitchers instead of just concentrating on doing what we do best.”

The Cougars enter Pac-10 play hitting a respectable .286 as a team. That number is up 14 points from last season, despite the absence of four-year starter Mike Kinkade, who batted .343 with eight home runs, and Ken Cameron, who hit .388 and scored 53 runs before signing a pro contract after his junior season.

Much of the offensive slack has been taken up by senior outfielder Jim Horner and sophomore catcher Jason Hairston. Horner is batting .364 with six homers and Hairston is hitting .325 with five homers.

Junior first baseman John Fischer, senior outfielder Rob Ryan, senior third baseman Ty Solomon and designated hitter Jered Fowler, a senior transfer from San Diego State, are also hitting better than .300.

The pitching, aside from senior lefty Robert Ramsay, has not been as consistent and Farrington is searching for a four-man starting rotation he can count on each weekend.

Ramsay, who is a hard-luck 1-4 despite a stingy 2.89 ERA, will start against PSU this afternoon.

“Right now he should not have a loss,” Farrington said of his 6- foot-4, 225-pound ace, who allowed only three hits in a 4-2 win over Gonzaga last week. “We have not played very well behind him.”

Sophomore left-hander Todd Belitz (2-1) is the only WSU pitcher with more than one win.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo