No. 6 Waves Wash Over Gonzaga In Doubleheader Sweep

College baseball

Most of the ears in A.R.T. Stadium were tuned to the radio, listening to the fate of the Gonzaga basketball team.

All the eyes were watching the Bulldogs baseball team battling against Pepperdine.

But, unfortunately for Gonzaga followers, what they saw and heard in both cases were the favorites walking away with wins on Saturday.

As almost everybody knows, UConn triumphed on the basketball floor in a squeaker. What most may not know is that No. 6 Pepperdine triumphed in a pair of easy wins on the diamond, 15-8 and 7-3.

“You know sometimes you look at it and you try and see what you did wrong, but today it was just clear they were the better team all around,” said GU baseball coach Steve Hertz. “They were just able to do everything just a little bit better than we were.

“They got the big hits when they needed them. They made the big pitches. They are just a solid, good baseball team.”

So solid and so good that the Waves raised their record to 23-2 and 4-1 in the West Coast Conference. Gonzaga fell to 7-9-1 and 0-2 in the conference.

In the second game of the double-header, Gonzaga had a chance to make some noise and perhaps even pull the upset.

The Bulldogs got two runs off starter Jay Adams in the bottom of the third and were in position to add more. But the inning ended with a runner stranded when a play at the plate didn’t go the Bulldogs way.

Then Steve Bennett was unable to return to the mound for the Bulldogs in the top of the fourth. The Gonzaga ace had held Pepperdine to just one run through three innings, but injured his shoulder in the top of the third and had to pull himself from the game.

Hertz, who had already used three arms in the first game after Barry Matthews got roughed up early, went to left-hander Tucker Urdahl.

The sophomore was one of the three players injured in the auto-pedestrian accident last week. But the soreness in his back and left side had subsided enough to allow him to pitch.

After getting through the fourth unscathed, Urdahl stumbled in the fifth. Back-to-back doubles tied the score at 2. A two-run homer on a 3-0 count by G.J. Raymundo gave the Waves a lead they would never relinquish.

The Bulldogs still had their chances. But they stranded two in the fifth. And had a two-out error in the ninth that led to two runs and the final 7-3 score.

“We just gave it away in the ninth,” said Hertz. “We throw it away and that gave them two unearned runs.”

In the first game, it was matter of giving up too many runs in one inning. The Waves got to Matthews in the third inning for seven runs to blow the game open. Once again, errors in the field cost the Bulldogs. They had two that inning, to go along with two batters hit by pitches and six hits.

“You can’t make mistake against a good team,” said Hertz. “We played solid in spurts in that second game. In that first game we didn’t play solid at all.”

The Bulldogs will be back in action against the Waves at 1 p.m. today at A.R.T. Stadium.

Michael Lindgren pitched five innings of one-hit ball as North Idaho College defeated visiting Colorado Northwestern Community College 11-1 to complete a four-game sweep of their Scenic West Athletic Conference series.

NIC (8-10 overall, 5-7 SWAC) won the opener 7-4.

Lindgren (2-1) struck out five and limited the Spartans to one single. Jeremy Isherwood of NIC doubled, scored twice and drove in two runs.

The Cardinals matched their season-best scoring output. They scored 11 against Lewis-Clark State in a nineinning game March 9.

Jack Arthaud hit a three-run homer in the seventh as Whitworth (8-13, 4-1) defeated Pacific Lutheran University 12-9 to salvage a split in a Northwest Conference doubleheader at Tacoma.

Miguel Saldin added a two-run single during Whitworth’s seven-run seventh. All of the runs, and three more in the eighth, were unearned.

PLU (8-7, 2-1) won the opener 6-1. Brian Farman (4-1) struck out eight and pitched a four-hitter, and Kyle Bowers had two doubles, a triple and three runs.

Kevin Richardson singled home the winning run with two out in the bottom of the 10th as Community Colleges of Spokane edged Lane 8-7 in the SAS/ Food Rainbow Invitational at Spokane Falls CC.

George Petticrew struck out 10 and had no walks through eight innings for CCS. Reliever Ben Vigeland (1-0) earned the win after a 10th-inning double play.

CCS plays Tacoma at 9 this morning for a berth in the championship game. The loser plays the Edmonds/Lane winner at noon for the other championship spot.