Culpepper connects

Jeff Culpepper was looking for a fastball.

With his Zags trailing by one in the bottom of the eighth inning Friday, with no one out and Kiel Thibault leading off first, Culpepper told himself to get his stride down quickly, to be ready for the heater.

On a 2-1 pitch from Pepperdine reliever Steve Kleen, he got what he was looking for. In the spot he wanted it.

“He left it out over the plate and I just dropped my hands and got the barrel (of the bat) on it,” Culpepper said.

The left-handed hitting senior lined the fastball down the right-field line, over the Avista Stadium fence and on top of the batting cage. He also lifted the Gonzaga Bulldogs past the Waves 5-4 in the first game of a West Coast Conference series between division leaders.

“We try to treat every game the same, not to get too excited or too down,” said Culpepper, whose true feelings were betrayed by his wide smile. “This one has more meaning, sure, but we can’t get too excited or too overwhelmed, because we still have a lot of work to do.”

The Waves (25-13 overall, 11-4 in the WCC’s West Division, a half-game behind USF after the Dons’ win over Loyola-Marymount) gave GU plenty of work to do from the start of the contest.

Luke Salas opened the game by reaching on shortstop Aaron McGuiness’ error, which led to two unearned runs. Salas scored the first on an RBI single by Chad Tracy. The second came on a fly-ball homer by Kleen, his sixth of the year, over the same fence Culpepper cleared, though about 20 feet shorter.

In between, Thibault gunned down a stealing Tracy, the first of three times the Zag defense helped blunt Pepperdine rallies.

But the defense couldn’t help in the third, when the Waves added two more runs, partly because of starter and winner Josh Monroe’s wildness. Pepperdine opened the inning with back-to-back singles by Adrian Ortiz and Salas, followed by Adrian Urbias’ sacrifice bunt.

Monroe issued consecutive walks – the first, to Tracy, intentional; the next – to Kleen, unintentional. Donald Brown’s sac fly made it 4-0.

But Monroe (7-2) only yielded three singles from there, two in the eighth sandwiched around another big throw from Thibault to nail Urbias, the WCC steals leader.

“Josh just battled all game long,” GU coach Mark Machtolf said. “He had to come back a day early because he got pushed back (to Saturday) last week in Portland, so he didn’t have his best stuff, but he got us to the eighth.”

By then the Zags (24-14 overall and 11-4 in the Coast Division, three games ahead of second-place USD) had rallied to within one.

The Waves’ 6-foot-4 right-hander Kea Kometani (7-3) struck out five and gave up seven hits in seven innings, but a couple of big mistakes on 0-2 pitches hurt. The first was to Bobby Carlson in the fourth and the ensuing bases-loaded lined single to left scored two, giving Carlson a WCC-leading 46 RBIs.

The other run scored on Culpepper’s fielder’s choice in the fifth, a force of Thibault at second that brought Machtolf out of the dugout after it appeared Danny Worth was pulled off the bag by Urbias’ wide throw.

It was the second time Machtolf had discussed calls with the umpires, the first coming in the fourth when McGuiness tried to score on Will Ayala’s ground ball to first. McGuiness’ hand-first slide may have eluded Tracy’s tag, but home plate umpire Rick Jaggers saw it differently.

Culpepper, who came in with three homers, made all that moot in the eighth off Kleen (3-3), who leads the WCC with eight saves.

After Brandon Harmon pitched a perfect ninth for a save in his third consecutive WCC game and fourth overall, the Zags had game one of a series that probably will decide home field for the WCC title series, where an NCAA berth would be at stake.

“A first day win is always huge,” Machtolf said, “especially against a program like Pepperdine’s. There is still a long way to go, but it was a quality win.”

The two teams meet again today at Avista with the first pitch scheduled for 1 p.m.

•Andy Jenkins singled in Tyler Graham in the bottom of the ninth as the ninth-ranked Oregon State Beavers (28-7, 7-3) upended Washington State (18-20, 0-10) 5-4 in Pac-10 action in Corvallis, Ore.

•Jeff Gilmore threw his first complete game of the season, allowing just four hits, as No. 24 Stanford (22-14, 5-5) held off Washington (24-15, 4-6) 2-1 in Pac-10 action in Stanford, Calif.