Pickler second in heptathlon
Despite battling injuries, Washington State junior Julie Pickler finished second, and senior Katie Miller eighth, in the women’s heptathlon at the Pac-10 Track & Field Championships on Sunday in Eugene, Ore.
Pickler, battling plantar fasciitis in her foot, scored 5,560 points to finish 327 behind champion Jacquelyn Johnson of Arizona State. Miller, competing on an injured ankle, placed eighth among 12 athletes with 4,929 points.
•Andy Young (third), Alexey Shkuratov (sixth) and Brian Bartow (seventh) gave host Oregon three team-point scorers in the men’s decathlon at the Pac-10 championships.
Washington’s Blake Bidleman also earned a team point, placing eighth. Arizona’s Jake Arnold was the champion with 7,691 points, defeating Arizona State’s Joshua Kinnaman by 484.
Baseball
James Johnson allowed just three hits in his first eight innings of work, striking out nine, as 27th-ranked Pepperdine (33-17, 12-6) defeated Gonzaga 10-4 at Avista Stadium, eliminating the Bulldogs from West Coast Conference playoff contention on Senior Day.
Darin Holcomb (Shadle Park High), Ryan Weigand, Nick Merriman and Aaron McGuinness each had RBIs in a ninth-inning rally for Gonzaga (27-21, 8-10).
•Paul Gran hit an RBI single to bring home Jared Prince in the bottom of the 11th inning and give Washington State a 9-8 victory over Utah Valley State (16-33) in a non-conference game in Pullman.
Prince continued his solid freshman campaign with four hits and three RBIs for the Cougars (30-17), and Travis Webb (Lewis and Clark) threw three shutout innings to improve to 3-0 on the season.
•Mike Stutes allowed an unearned run on three hits in eight innings as No. 5 Oregon State (34-11, 11-4) defeated No. 22 Washington (31-19, 9-9) 7-1 to win a three-game Pac-10 series in Corvallis, Ore.
Softball
Amber Fowler (Colville) was a triple short of the cycle, and she, Tasia Dugan and Stephanie Day (Colville) each had four RBIs as CC Spokane routed Yakima Valley (14-23, 6-17) 16-1 in five innings to open an NWAACC Eastern Region doubleheader at Spokane Falls.
Fowler had four hits in the nightcap, and Lacey Parry (Mead) scored four times to give the Sasquatch a 20-7 win and a sweep of the four-game series. CCS (30-8, 22-4) is now tied with Wenatchee Valley (29-10, 22-4) for first place with two games left.