Balk leads Cougars past No. 12 Cal
Pinch-runner Matt Fanelli scored on a balk by California reliever Matt Gorgen with two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning and the 25th-ranked Washington State Cougars defeated the No. 12 Golden Bears 5-4 in Pacific-10 Conference baseball play on Saturday in Pullman.
Jim Murphy walked to lead off the WSU 10th. Fanelli replaced Murphy and was sacrificed to second base by Jared Prince. Garry Kuykendall’s groundout moved Fanelli to third base. Shea Vucinich had a 1-1 count when Gorgen (0-1) flinched prior to starting his windup, scoring Fanelli.
Matt Way (1-1) earned his first win of the season with six innings of relief. He allowed one run on five hits.
Prince staked WSU (14-7, 1-2) to a 1-0 lead in the first inning with a two-out RBI single.
Josh Satin’s solo home run in the top of the second pulled Cal (15-4-1, 2-1) even.
The Cougs regained the lead in the bottom of the third when Michael Weber stroked a leadoff double and scored on a one-out single by Paul Gran.
Cal bounced right back to take a 3-2 lead in the top of the fourth on run-scoring singles by Rich Gorman and Michael Brady off WSU starter Ross Humes.
The Cougars regained the lead in their half of the fourth on Greg Lagreid’s two-out two-run single.
Cal pulled even again on Satin’s RBI hit in the the seventh.
•The Gonzaga Bulldogs (15-8) rolled to a 9-5, 18-12 non-conference doubleheader sweep of the Sacramento State Hornets (5-14) in Sacramento, Calif.
In the opener, starter Matt Fields improved his record to 3-1 and Cody Martin notched his fourth save.
In the second game, Gonzaga fell behind 7-2 before rallying for the victory behind a pair of home runs by Mark Castellitto.
•Collin Gibbs (1-4) tossed a six-hit shutout and Dan Ramsey’s sacrifice fly in the top of the third inning scored Dan Belet for the game’s only run as the Whitworth Pirates (8-14, 7-9) defeated the Lewis & Clark Pioneers 1-0 to gain a split of a Northwest Conference doubleheader in Portland.
AJ Brown went 4 for 5, including a home run, and drove in seven runs to lead the Pioneers (5-15, 3-13) to a 14-4 win in the opener.
•The Community Colleges of Spokane Sasquatch (8-4) split a doubleheader with the Grays Harbor Chokers, winning the opener 7-1 before losing the nightcap 9-5.
Jordan Johnson, Cody Reeves and Matt Starr each had a pair of hits to pace the Sasquatch in the opener.
Rowing
The Gonzaga men won three events and the women earned a pair of victories at the Oregon State Dual in Dexter Lake.
The GU men picked up wins in the varsity 4 with a time of 7 minutes, 43.4 seconds over the 2,000-meter course. GU also won the novice 8 in 6:16.2 and the second novice 8 in 7:09.1
The GU women won the varsity 8 race with a time of 7:23.26 and the varsity 4 in 8:16.39.
Track and field
Whitworth’s Emmanuel Bofa broke the school record in winning the men’s 800-meter run with an NCAA Division III automatic qualifying time of 1:51:01 at the Point Loma Nazarene Invitational in San Diego.
Teammate Cody Stelzer had a school-record and automatic qualifying mark of 6 feet, 11 inches in the high jump. He finished second.
•A trio of Washington State Cougars women won events at the USC Trojan Invitational in Los Angeles.
Anna Layman won the 800 with a time of 2:10.74. Lorraine King was first in the 400 hurdles in 1:00.29. McKenzie Garberg won the discus with a toss of 171-5. All three were NCAA regional qualifying marks.
WSU’s men’s 4x100 relay team of Andre Jennings, Jeshua Anderson, Justin Woods and Marlon Murray won with a regional qualifying time of 40.61.
•Weber State was picked to win both the men’s and women’s Big Sky Conference outdoor championship in a vote by the conference’s head coaches.
Eastern Washington’s men were picked to place seventh in the nine-team conference, while the women were picked eighth.
Softball
Ashely Fargher sparked the Community Colleges of Spokane Sasquatch to a 7-3, 10-1 NWAACC sweep at Yakima Valley. Fargher, a University High graduate, went 4 for 5 on the day, including two doubles and a triple, and drove in six runs.