Lagat Double Winner

Roundup

Washington State University distance-running star Bernard Lagat won two events within 90 minutes Saturday, adding to his growing portfolio of major triumphs and helping the Cougars place 10th in the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships.

A junior from Kapsabet, Kenya, Lagat galloped to victory in the mile with a school indoor record of 3 minutes, 55.65 seconds. He followed, less than 2 hours later, with a personal best of 7:54.92 to win the 3,000 meters.

The Cougars scored 21 points as a team. Arkansas won its 15th title in 16 years with a total of 65. Stanford was second with 42.5 points. Idaho placed 18th with 13 points.

Jacob Davis of Texas set the meet’s only collegiate record by clearing 19-2-1/2 in the pole vault.

Lagat became the first men’s competitor to finish first in both the mile and the 3,000 since Joe Falcon of Arkansas in 1988.

“I had plenty (of energy) left coming into this (3,000) race,” said Lagat, who led from start to finish. “I just used half of my effort and I was feeling really great.”

Although he has won a pair of Pacific-10 Conference cross country championships and the recent Los Angeles Invitational mile, Lagat had not won an NCAA individual event.

Washington State’s only other competitor Saturday, freshman Whitney Evans of Calgary, Alberta, tied for sixth in the women’s high jump with a leap of 6 feet.

Texas won the women’s team championship with 61 points. Louisiana State was second with 57. Evans gave Washington State its only points (2.5).

The Idaho men’s 4x400 relay team finished sixth. Tawanda Chiwira, who ran the second leg, wound up fifth in the 400-meter finals with a time of 46.73 seconds.

Baseball

Gonzaga (4-5) received masterful pitching from Steve Bennett and Tucker Urdahl, who allowed only three hits between them, on the way to a 4-1 victory over Oregon State (8-10) at Corvallis, Ore.

Jared Hertz homered to left-center field with Travis Knight aboard to break a scoreless tie in the seventh inning. The Bulldogs scored two more runs in the eighth.

Bennett, who worked the first six innings, and Urdahl combined for 12 strikeouts.

Aaron Abram’s seventh-inning double drove home the winning run as 13th-ranked Wichita State beat Washington State (9-3) 9-6 in the Hormel Classic at Minneapolis.

WSU fell behind 5-0 in the first inning, but the Cougars tied the score on Boyd Robertson’s two-run home run in the fourth inning and took a 6-5 lead in the fifth.

After St. Martin’s scored 10 runs in the first inning, Whitworth played the Saints to a near standstill, but that wasn’t enough to avoid an 18-10 defeat in the Guardian Plumbing & Heating tourney at Lewiston.

Softball

Whitworth won once in three tries at the Central Washington tourney in Ellensburg, beating Corcordia 4-1 with the help of Katie Brenner’s two-run, fourth-inning double.

St. Martin’s edged the Pirates 4-3, and Central blitzed the Bucs 18-0 on Holly Van Wert’s one-hitter.