College baseball: Cougs face devilish task

Things don’t get any easier for Washington State University this weekend. The Cougars opened Pac-10 play last week, losing two of three to rival Washington, then traveled to Salt Lake City and lost one nonconference game to BYU and another to snow.

But Friday at 5:30 p.m. in Pullman the Cougars (17-10, 2-5 in their last seven) face their toughest test: No. 1-ranked Arizona State.

The Sun Devils won their first 26 games this season before a 6-5, 12-inning loss at Oregon last Friday ended the winning streak. But they still kept their top spot among all the major polls and their spot atop the Pac-10 standings.

“Arizona State is always really, really good,” WSU coach Donnie Marbut said. “It looks like they are taking their game to another level.”

The guy taking them to that level is first-year coach Tim Esmay, a former assistant who took over from long-time coach Pat Murphy, who resigned in late November, a day after the NCAA sent the school notice of alleged rules violations.

Murphy continued the ASU tradition of being a national power with power-hitting lineups. That’s changed.

“That’s not their real offense this year,” Marbut said. “They are one of those teams it looks like if you make an error, walk somebody, they are going to make you pay for it.

“Somebody told me they’ve got nine piranhas out there running around.”

The main piranha is leadoff hitter Drew Maggi, reigning Pac-10 player of the week after a 6-for-13 performance against the Ducks.

But Marbut is more concerned about the play of his team, which suffered a heart-breaking loss Thursday night in Seattle, a 3-2 defeat in which the Huskies scored twice with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

If anything, though, playing the Sun Devils offers a chance at redemption.

“You’re at home on Mom’s Weekend against the No. 1 team in the country,” Marbut said. “For one, you need to find the magic or they’ll beat you up. And two, it’s the best opportunity to do it. You’ve got an audience.”

Zags open WCC

Gonzaga opens the West Coast Conference schedule this weekend at San Francisco.

Everyone in the WCC is looking up at Portland, which opened conference play last weekend with a three-game sweep of Santa Clara. The Pilots (18-7) were picked last in the preseason poll.

GU was picked fourth in the same poll but has been hitting the ball like champions, with Drew Heid (.385, five home runs going into this week), Mark Castellitto (.337, eight homers and 27 RBIs) and Andy Hunter (.336, six, 30) leading an offense averaging seven runs a game. But the pitching hasn’t met expectations, with a team earned-run average of 5.88 and no one with more than two wins.

The Dons got a big win last week, 5-1 over Stanford with third baseman Stephen Yarrow hitting his WCC-best ninth home run.

Notes

Even rain couldn’t stop the George Fox offense last weekend. The Bruins came to Spokane and scored 42 runs in three games – Friday’s opener had to be finished on Saturday because of a deluge – to sweep a Whitworth Pirates team that had won three of its last four weekend series. Whitworth (8-18, 5-7 Northwest Conference) travels to NWC-leading Pacific Lutheran (19-10, 10-2) this weekend. … Community Colleges of Spokane’s Taylor King entered this week third in the NWAACC in runs (23), seventh in hits (26) and 10th in RBIs (17). Tanner Knutson is third in saves with three.

Wednesday’s results

Ben Guidos (1-4) scattered five hits over 62/3 shutout innings as visiting Washington (16-11) defeated Gonzaga 5-1 in nonconference play at Patterson Sports Complex.

Guidos outdueled Andrew Danner (1-1), who allowed one earned run and struck out nine in eight innings.

Aaron Russell went 3 for 4 with a two-run single in the eighth for UW, which has won nine of 10.

Drew Heid went 4 for 4 for the Bulldogs (11-17), who lost both games of the series. GU’s Kevin Hawk had a one-out RBI single in the ninth.

•Deren Jones went 3 for 5 in the opener and Jeremy Burk struck out seven in the second game as Blue Mountain (11-11, 4-2) swept CC Spokane 6-5, 3-1 in NWAACC play at Pendleton, Ore. Chris Allen struck out seven in the second game for the Sasquatch (14-8, 2-4).