Stanford Gets Early Start, Beats WSU
No. 3-ranked Stanford scored six runs in the first three innings Thursday night and the Cardinal went on to a 9-3 Pacific-10 Conference base ball victory over Washington State at Stanford, Calif.
Stanford (21-8) improved to 7-0 in conference play. Washington State fell to 16-10, 1-3.
Winning pitcher Jason Young struck out 12 while working the first seven innings.
Jeff Scherer’s solo home run in the second inning gave WSU its first run. He added a run-scoring double in the sixth.
The second game of the three-game series will be played on Sunken Diamond tonight.
GU gears up for Portland
The lead was 8-2.
It was the seventh inning.
And Gonzaga was staring at its first five-game winning streak in two years.
Four innings and nine Santa Clara runs later, Bulldogs coach Steve Hertz was picking up the pieces of his team’s first loss in a week.
Now, he’s got to put them back together in time for Gonzaga’s weekend series at Portland.
“We let that one slip away,” said Hertz, whose team is 11-10-1 and 3-3 in the West Coast Conference. “And it will be a tough one at Portland. They’re a good ballclub.”
Good enough to out-hit the Bulldogs 30 to 10 and take two of three earlier in the season. But Portland has been on a slide, losing four in a row to fall to 7-17 and 2-7 in the conference.
If Portland doesn’t get some immediate help on the mound, that four-game losing streak could grow.
The Pilots pitching staff is yielding a .322 batting average to opponents, the highest in the league.
Stats like that should make Adam Stokey’s eyes light up. The Gonzaga sophomore has been on a tear over the past four games. Last week, the first baseman had eight hits, four of them home runs, and drove in 10 runs. His productivity earned him WCC Player of the Week honors. He is tied or leads the team with 9 HRs, 31 RBIs and a .360 average.
Although the GU bats have been producing, Hertz would like to see the starting pitchers go deeper into the game. And the bullpen has to bounce back from Sunday’s 11-inning loss to Santa Clara.
“We need to chew up some better innings from our pitching staff,” he said. “We do that and we’ll be OK.”
Whitworth (11-14, 7-2) also is on the road. The Pirates, winners in four of their last five, will take on first-place Linfield (10-9, 4-0) today in a Northwest Conference game. Nate Lynch leads the Pirates in batting (.434), RBIs (31), hits (43), and home runs (8).