Whits, CCS prosper; Zags, Cougars do not
The Spokane area’s four college baseball teams went a combined 3-8 this past weekend.
A .273 winning percentage is usually a recipe for disaster, and in the case of half the schools, it was.
But the other two came out of the weekend having reached some goals.
Two of the wins were by the Community Colleges of Spokane, part of a 3-1 week for the Sasquatch that lifted them into a three-way tie for first in the NWAACC East Division standings.
The other win was recorded by Whitworth and, though it was the Pirates’ lone victory in a Northwest Conference-ending three-game set at Pacific Lutheran, it was significant. The win assured the Pirates of a fourth-place conference finish at 14-10. It cost PLU a chance at the league’s automatic berth in the NCAA Division II playoffs, won by Linfield. And it also assured the Whits a winning season overall, no matter what happens in this weekend’s season-ending, three-game set at Lewis-Clark State.
With CCS and Whitworth grabbing the three wins, it meant Gonzaga and Washington State each suffered through 0-3 weekends.
The Bulldogs’ sweep at Santa Clara could prove to be the most costly.
GU went into the weekend with a three-game bulge on runner-upSan Diego in the West Coast Conference’s Coast Division standings. The Bulldogs leave it with a one-game edge. And the Toreros come into Spokane this weekend for a three-game series that could decide the division race.
USD also comes in on a roll, having scored three unearned runs in the bottom of the ninth to edge USF 3-2 Sunday, taking the series 2-1 and ensuring home-field advantage for the WCC’s title series if the Toreros catch Gonzaga. USD and GU each won the season series against USF and Pepperdine, the West Division front-runners.
WSU’s three home defeats at the hands of rival Washington, coupled with UCLA’s Sunday home win against Cal, left the Cougars as the lone Pac-10 team without a league victory. The Cougars won’t be able to do anything about that this weekend, when they play host to Sacramento State (18-27) in three non-conference games.
Around the area
The Zags ran into a buzz saw in Santa Clara. The Broncos, third in the West Division, were closing one field (Buck Shaw Stadium on Friday night) and opening another (Stephen Schott Stadium on Saturday). And they weren’t about to let either occasion pass in defeat… . GU right-hander Josh Monroe (7-3) had his poorest outing of the season in Friday’s 11-2 defeat, yielding seven earned runs in 22/3 innings. Junior left-hander Pat Donovan turned in another stellar effort Saturday, giving up just two runs over nine innings, but the Bulldogs’ bats were silent in the 13-inning, 3-2 defeat. And they didn’t wake up Sunday, saddling sophomore Bobby McEwen (1-3) with the 4-1 loss… . No Bulldog had more than four hits on the weekend against a Broncos staff that entered the weekend with an earned run average of nearly 5. … On paper, USD’s staff is a stiffer test, with a team ERA of 3.82, though the Bulldogs scored 23 runs in their 2-1 series win last month in San Diego. But Matt Couch had just entered the USD rotation then and the freshman is starting to hit his stride, limiting USF to one earned run and five hits in a complete-game win Sunday. The performance earned Couch the WCC’s Pitcher of the Week award. … After hosting USD, the Zags go on the road for their final seven WCC games, three at Saint Mary’s and four at Loyola. The Toreros finish by hosting LMU while GU is at Saint Mary’s.
Washington State’s pitching took another pounding at the hands of the Huskies, yielding 56 hits and 44 runs in the three games. After the weekend, the Cougars’ Pac-10 team ERA ballooned to 9.30 and their league batting average dropped to .232… . WSU will have to go 5-4 in its final nine Pac-10 games to avoid its worst conference season ever (the Cougs were 4-20 in 1999). … Second baseman Jeff Miller had five hits in the series while Jason Freeman added three. They are the only two Cougs hitting better than .300 in Pac-10 play (.313 and .308, respectively).
Whitworth’s solo fourth-place finish was assured in the sixth inning of Saturday’s second game. Tied at 2, shortstop Nick Froman was hit to lead off the inning, stole second, advanced to third on Danny Pecka‘s bunt single, then scored the go-ahead run on an error. The Pirates scored four more runs in the inning, including two on Ryley Hunter‘s single, en route to a 7-5 win. Cody Person, a junior right-hander from Florence, Mont., raised his record to 5-1 with last-inning relief help from Gregg Hare, a right-hander who played at North Central High. … Froman, a sophomore transfer from Gonzaga, has played in all 34 of the Pirates’ games, starting 33. He leads the team in at-bats (125), hits (42), home runs (5) and RBIs (26) while hitting .336. … Person, who lowered his ERA to 3.49, not only is tied with Dan Lundberg in wins, he also leads the Pirates by a large margin in strikeouts, with 52 in 562/3 innings.
The Community Colleges of Spokane not only moved back into first place with the 3-1 week, the Sasquatch assured they control their destiny in the East Division race. By splitting with Columbia Basin last Wednesday, CCS gave itself a 3-1 season edge on one of the teams with which it is tied. The other, Treasure Valley, comes to Spokane for a Saturday doubleheader. The Sasquatch swept a twin bill from TVCC in Pendleton, Ore., last month. … Besides Treasure Valley, CCS’s other remaining games are against the division’s bottom three teams: The Sasquatch host sixth-place Blue Mountain on Wednesday, travel to last-place Yakima Valley next Wednesday before ending the regular season by hosting seventh-place Walla Walla on May 14. … Sophomore right-hander Joe Byers (2-1) came up big for CCS last week, picking up his fifth save in a 4-3 win over Columbia Basin, before relieving in the eighth inning and finishing up the 12-inning, 4-3 win over Big Bend on Saturday.