Zags already know the score
Mark Machtolf knows the temptation will be there.
But Gonzaga’s head baseball coach is hoping his Bulldogs will resist the urge to engage in scoreboard watching this weekend and focus, instead, on finding a way past West Coast Conference rival San Francisco in an important three-game series that opens Friday at the Dons’ Benedetti Diamond.
“If they don’t,” Machtolf said, “we’re going to get our butts kicked, and it won’t matter what happens between Pepperdine and San Diego.”
GU, 26-19 overall and 9-3 in the WCC following last weekend’s sweep of Saint Mary’s, finds itself alone in second place in the conference standings, a game behind co-leaders Pepperdine (30-13, 10-2) and San Diego (32-14, 10-2).
The 12th-ranked Waves and 16th-ranked Toreros open a three-game series Friday at USD’s Cunningham Stadium. The winner of that series will be assured of retaining at least a share of the conference lead with six WCC games remaining.
If either team sweeps the series, it will be in first place alone, no matter what Gonzaga does against USF (21-21, 4-8), which is 9-5 at home this spring.
Still, Machtolf wouldn’t mind seeing just such a scenario play out, figuring it would give his Bulldogs a much better chance of slipping into sole possession of second place and securing a spot in the WCC championship series, which will pit the top two finishers in the conference race against each other in a three-game series to determine the league’s automatic berth in the NCAA playoffs.
“They’re both so good, you don’t know how it’s going to break,” he said of the Pepperdine-USD matchup. “But, secretly, you should probably hope that one team loses three.”
GU, which will close WCC play with a three-game series at Pepperdine on May 11-13, won two out of three from San Diego at home earlier this year and holds the tiebreaker edge over the Toreros.
But that won’t mean a thing unless the Zags keep pace with the leaders. To do that, they will have to win at least two out of three against USF.
“The approach we’ll take is that San Francisco is an incredibly tough place to play – maybe the toughest in the conference in years past,” Machtolf said. “We need to stress that to our players and make sure we control the things we can control.
“These kids, I think, are smart enough to understand that and not worry about Pepperdine and San Diego.”
Cougars play spoilers
Washington State is no longer a contender for the Pacific-10 Conference title, but the Cougars (20-18, 3-9) certainly had an effect on the conference race last weekend when they took two out of three games from visiting Arizona.
The Wildcats (31-9, 9-3) came into Pullman ranked No. 13 and tied with UCLA for first place in the conference. They left town in third place, behind the Bruins (22-16, 8-1) and Arizona State (32-10, 10-2).
Long time between titles
Pacific Lutheran, which scored 13 runs in the final three innings of Sunday’s 14-3 Northwest Conference rout of Whitworth, is on the verge of winning its first baseball title in more than a half century.
The Lutes (29-7, 18-3) need to win one of three games in this weekend’s conference series finale against Puget Sound to secure the regular-season NWC title. A victory over UPS would give PLU its first conference championship since 1954 when in won the Evergreen Conference, which no longer exists. It would also give the Lutes the NWC’s automatic berth in the Division III tournament.
Quick hits
Despite its recent struggles, Saint Mary’s boasts the WCC’s leading base-stealer and run scorer in Eric Cattoni, who stole 26 bases and scored 46 runs. … San Diego senior Jordan Abruzzo became the Toreros’ career leader in hits (278) and run batted in (197) during Saturday’s 12-1 win over Loyola Marymount. … Heading into Tuesday night’s non-conference matchup against UC Riverside, No. 18 UCLA had won 14 of its last 16 games – the Bruins’ best 16-game stretch since 1997.