GU baseball in poll for first time in 25 years
Two wins over top-10 opponents last week has earned the Gonzaga University baseball team its first national ranking in a quarter century.
The Bulldogs, 6-1 and working on a six-game winning streak after three wins at the Coca-Cola Classic during the weekend in Tucson, Ariz., landed at No. 29 Monday in the Collegiate Baseball Top 30 poll.
GU’s victims included then No. 10 Arizona State, which fell out of the poll this week, and No. 2 Oregon State, which held its spot. There was no change in the top seven. Florida (3-0) is No. 1.
With GU earning its first national ranking since 1981, the West Coast Conference has three ranked teams. San Diego is ninth and Pepperdine 14th.
“Gonzaga senior left-hander Patrick Donovan, who allowed one run on six hits in six innings in the 9-1 over Arizona State, is the WCC Pitcher of the Week.
Men’s basketball
Washington senior Brandon Roy, who averaged 22.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.5 assists as the Huskies completed their first regular-season sweep of the Los Angeles schools in 19 years during the weekend, was named the Pac-10 Conference men’s basketball player of the week.
Track and field
The Western Athletic Conference athletes of the week were selected for there performances in the Husky Classic in Seattle.
Dee Olson, an Idaho sophomore distance runner, is the female choice after an NCAA Indoor provisional qualifying time of 4 minutes, 41.23 seconds. She was the top collegiate finisher in the mile.
Boise State’s Forest Braden, a senior from Bonners Ferry, earned the male award for an NCAA automatic qualifying time of 13:47.73 in the 5,000 meters.
Rodeo
The season didn’t get off to a great start for Ryan Gray, but things are definitely picking up for the Cheney bareback rider, a senior at Texas Tech.
Gray leads his event at the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo with 249 points on three rides and is first in the third round after an 88-point ride Saturday. The 88 is the high-mark ride of the rodeo, which started Feb. 4 and ends Sunday.
Gray, who qualified for his first National Finals Rodeo last year, had won just $1,930 in three rodeos this year. Rowdy Buechner of Sandpoint, who also made his first finals, is eighth in bareback with nearly $6,500 in two rodeos.
“Tahonta, the two-time PRCA Bull of the Year for Big Bend Rodeo Co. out of Ritzville, has been retired because of a hip injury.
“It’s really a shame because he was such an awesome bull,” stock contractor Don Hutsell of Ritzville told Prorodeo News. “Now we’ll just be breeding him (in Texas) and hoping we can make another one like him.”
Tahonta was the top bull in 2003-04 when the 1,900-pound gray bucked off all comers. Then last June in Reno he was covered twice.