Gonzaga wins, avoids sweep at hands of San Diego

Marshall Bratton’s two-out, two-run single capped a six-run fifth inning and Patrick Donovan worked eight innings to guide the Gonzaga Bulldogs to an 8-7 victory over the San Diego Toreros in West Coast Conference baseball action at Cunningham Stadium in San Diego on Sunday.

The victory helped the Bulldogs (21-25, 13-11) avoid a three-game sweep at the hands of the Toreros (30-21, 16-11).

Donovan (3-3) evened his record by allowing nine hits and six earned runs in his eight-inning stint. John Gonzalez picked up his third save of the season despite giving up a run in the ninth.

San Diego jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second inning, but Gonzaga battled back with a pair of runs in the top of the fourth, its first two runs of the weekend. Bobby Carlson singled in the first run and David Johnson followed with an RBI double.

The Toreros added a run in the bottom of the fourth, but the Bulldogs responded by lighting up the scoreboard in the top of the fifth.

A single and two walks chased San Diego starter Justin Blaine (4-3). Carlson drew a bases-loaded walk from reliever Patrick Lucy to force in the first run. An infield error on a Johnson grounder drove in two more runs. Matt Reding added an RBI single before Bratton delivered the final blow.

Bratton finished with four hits in five trips to pace the Bulldogs.

Gonzaga sophomore catcher Kiel Thibault added a pair of hits and is now hitting .444 on the season. He has 83 hits this year, tying him for fifth place on the Zags’ single-season list. With eight games remaining, Thibault is just nine hits away from Larry Patterson’s school record set in 1977. Thibault is also chasing Patterson’s single-season batting average mark of .448, also set in 1977.

•Washington freshman Tim Lincecum struck out 13 batters in eight innings and the 16th-ranked Huskies (28-15-1, 12-6) took two of three from the top-ranked Stanford Cardinal (37-8, 11-4) with a 9-2 victory at Husky Ballpark.

The Huskies trail the Pacific-10 Conference-leading Cardinal by only one-half game. Washington has six games remaining in conference play – three at Southern Cal and three at home against UCLA. Stanford, which had won 15 straight three-game series, has nine games left in conference play.

Lincecum (7-1) earned his second win of the weekend against the Cardinal. He worked the final two innings of the Huskies’ 3-2 win on Friday. Lincecum has 127 strikeouts on the season, just four shy of Jeff Heaverlo’s school record, set in 1999.

The Huskies handed Stanford freshman Greg Reynolds (3-1) his first loss of the season.

John Otness went 3 for 5 with a home run and three RBIs and Brent Lillibridge drove in a pair of runs with his ninth homer of the season to lead the Huskies’ offense.

•Aaron MacKenzie (5-6) gave up just two runs in eight innings of work but Washington State failed to muster any offense and the Cougars (24-20) came up on the short end of a 3-1 decision against the Sacramento State Hornets (26-31) in non-conference play in Pullman.

MacKenzie surrendered only four hits, while fanning seven, but Sac State’s Ethan Katz (8-5) was equal to the task. Katz went seven innings and allowed just one run on eight hits.

WSU loaded the bases with one out in the fifth inning, but Katz struck out Jay Miller swinging and induced Grant Richardson into a groundout to end the threat.

The Cougars led 1-0 when Jeremy Farrar singled home Zach McAngus in the second inning.

The Hornets tied the game in the fourth when Jack Arroyo stole home. Bret LeVier’s RBI single in the fifth inning put Sac State ahead to stay.

Softball

Kristina Thorson tossed a complete-game one-hitter and Haley Woods belted a three-run first-inning home run to lead the fourth-ranked California Bears (43-11, 10-8) to an 8-0 Pac-10 victory over the sixth-ranked Washington Huskies (35-15, 9-8) in a game called after six innings in Berkeley, Calif., because of the mercy rule.

Thorson (21-3) gave up a single to Washington’s Dominique Lastrapes leading off the game and surrendered a first-inning walk to Sarah Hyatt. After that, Thorson did not allow another Husky baserunner.

Huskies ace Ashley Boek (24-10) took the loss. She allowed six runs on seven hits in only three innings as the starter.