WSU’s Welch captures 11th career tourney

Washington State Cougars senior Kim Welch earned medalist honors for the 11th time in her career by winning the Peg Barnard California Collegiate women’s golf tournament on Sunday in Stanford, Calif.

Welch, a two-time All-America selection, closed with a 3-over-par 74 and a two-round total of 2-under 140 at the par-71, 6,030-yard Stanford Golf Course.

Welch beat runner-up Paige Mackenzie of the Washington Huskies, who closed with a 72, by three strokes.

Welch, who won the event by one shot last year, set a school record and a course record with her opening-day 66.

Washington nipped WSU 587-590 to win the team title. Tournament host Stanford finished third at 593, followed by Fresno State and San Francisco at 607.

The Huskies’ Kim Shin (146) finished in a two-way tie for sixth place, while WSU’s Anastasia Kostina tied for eighth place with four others at 147. It was Kostina’s ninth top-10 finish this year, a mark that ties her with Welch (2003) for the single-season team record.

The Cougars got top-20 finishes from seniors Jay-Lee Longbottom (151) and Maria Kostina (152).

Next up for the Cougars and Huskies is the Pacific-10 Conference Championships on April 18-20 at Berkeley, Calif.

Rowing

The Washington Huskies men’s varsity 8 and junior varsity 8 posted perfect records to tie for their respective championships at the two-day Windermere Collegiate Crew Classic at Redwood Shores in Belmont, Calif.

A Henley-style match racing format was implemented for the regatta. Rather than racing alongside five other boats, each crew competed in head-to-head races.

The Huskies’ top two men’s boats each registered 3-0 records to tie California. The two Pac-10 rivals did not row against each other in the varsity events. They will meet in two weeks at the annual Washington-Cal dual regatta at UW’s Montlake Cut course.

The fourth-ranked Huskies opened with wins over No. 5 Stanford and No. 17 Michigan on Saturday and then clocked a 5:40.4 over the 2,000-meter course to defeat No. 8 Dartmouth on Sunday.

The UW men’s junior varsity 8 posted a 10-second win over Stanford and a 20-second win over UC Davis on Saturday and capped an impressive weekend with a 17-second win over Dartmouth on Sunday.

The Washington women’s varsity 8 team won two of three races. Stanford and California both went 3-0 to share top honors. The 12th-ranked Huskies women opened with a loss to No. 9 Virginia before bouncing back to defeat Texas and No. 14 Wisconsin.

Softball

The eighth-ranked Stanford Cardinal (28-7, 3-2) got a three-run home run from freshman Michelle Smith in the first inning and held on for a 4-3 victory over the 20th-ranked Washington Huskies (19-14, 1-5) in Pac-10 play at Stanford, Calif.

Prep track and field

Ben Poffenroth of Ferris High School finished sixth in the boys 800-meter run on Saturday at the elite Arcadia Invitational track meet in Arcadia, Calif.

Poffenroth finished with a time of 1 minute, 53.82 seconds in the race won by Colin Campbell (1:51.26) of Ventura (Calif.) High School.

Mead High’s Steven Gimpel clocked a 9:35.30 to finish 21st in the boys seeded two-mile run.