Vucinich, Conley help Cougars split

Shea Vucinich’s sacrifice fly in the top of the 12th inning Saturday afternoon led Washington State (15-9, 1-2) to a 6-5 win to open its Pac-10 baseball doubleheader against Washington in Seattle.

The Cougars fell 4-3 in the second game to drop the conference-opening series 1-2.

Huskies freshman Adam Cimber earned the win in his first collegiate start. Caleb Brown’s three-run triple in the fifth inning staked the Huskies to a 4-1 lead.

Adam Conley earned the win in the opener for WSU, pitching 42/3 innings of scoreless relief with five strikeouts.

•George Fox picked up three wins against Northwest Conference foe Whitworth at Merkel Field.

The Bruins (18-9, 11-4) opened with a 16-5 win, completing Friday’s game suspended by rain.

George Fox followed with an 11-3 win to open a scheduled doubleheader. The Bruins built a 9-1 lead in the third game and held off the Pirates (8-18, 5-7) 15-10.

The Pirates’ third-game offense was led by three hits from John Rausch and Landon Scott, and two RBIs apiece from Rausch, Kevin Valerio and Scott Carr.

•Hawaii (15-7) ace Josh Slaats recorded 10 strikeouts over seven innings, knocking off Gonzaga (10-14) 3-1 in a nonconference series opener late Friday in Honolulu.

College softball

Amanda Krier went 7 for 7 with two home runs and North Idaho (23-21, 16-16 Scenic West Athletic Conference) split for the second consecutive day against Snow College, winning the opener 13-2 before falling 13-9 at Ephraim, Utah.

Krier hit the first of her two homers in the opener, tallying six RBIs, and Lauren Maloney added a grand slam behind Alyssa Erickson, who earned the win.

•Jessica Mangis earned her sixth win of the season with seven strikeouts in seven innings as Whitworth (11-12, 5-10 Northwest Conference) finished with a split of its four-game series with visiting Puget Sound.

On Saturday, the Pirates won 7-2 behind Mangis, who also homered in the game, before falling 8-6 in the second game.

Prior to the doubleheader, the Loggers (7-21, 5-11) recorded the final three outs of a game that had been suspended Friday evening, winning that contest 13-9.

•Rachel Aimone earned both wins, including a four-hit shutout, as Yakima Valley CC (7-11, 2-4 NWAACC) swept Community Colleges of Spokane (4-13, 3-3) 1-0, 7-5 in Yakima. Shelby Bethel went eight scoreless innings for the Sasquatch in the opener before allowing the deciding run in the bottom of the ninth.

•Danielle Lawrie bounced back from a loss Thursday and early troubles Friday to toss 91/3 scoreless innings and lead No. 1 Washington (30-3, 2-1 Pac-10) to a 3-1, 7-2 sweep of No. 5 UCLA (27-6, 1-2) in Seattle. Lawrie pitched 141/3 innings over two games, striking out 17.

Track and field

Washington State’s Jeshua Anderson won the university division 400-meter hurdles for the third year in a row at the Texas Relays in Austin, while teammate Marissa Tschida broke her school record in the women’s javelin.

Anderson won the one-lap hurdles in 49.77 seconds – just .06 ahead of Texas Tech’s Bryce Brown. USC’s Reggie Wyatt, who shattered Anderson’s national high school record for the 300 hurdles last year, finished a distant fifth in 51.68 in their first meeting.

Tschida added more than 4 feet to her WSU record with a throw of 186 feet, 1 inch in finishing second to Liz Gleadle from the University of British Columbia, who reached 189-9.

WSU also got a strong third-place finish in the high jump from Trent Arrivey, who cleared 7-1.

•Simon Sorenson and Armand Hopkins were double winners as Eastern Washington made one of its strongest showings at the Al Manuel Invitational in Missoula. The Eagles went 5-1 in dual scoring, with the men sweeping Montana, Montana State and Gonzaga and the women beating both the Bobcats and Bulldogs.

Just a freshman, Sorenson led a 1-2 finish in the 800 (1:56.70) and 1,500 (4:03.74), while Hopkins won the long jump (22-5) and triple jump (44-8). Sprinters Chad Butorac and Brad Wall won the 200 and 400, respectively, and teamed up on EWU’s winning 4x400 relay team. David Howard’s 51-113/4 throw in the shot paced another 1-2 finish.

On the women’s side, Nicole Luckenbach took the hammer by nearly 25 feet with a throw of 189-10, and was joined on the winner’s podium by discus thrower Erica Chaney (152-0), sprinter Whitney Leavitt (25.40 in the 200) and intermediate hurdler Sarah Frey (1:02.90).

Brittany O’Regan won the women’s 5,000 for Gonzaga.

•Washington State’s Joe Bartlett was one of three double winners at the Sam Adams Classic at Whitworth.

Bartlett threw 160-10 to win the discus and also claimed the shot put at 54-21/2, outlasting Whitworth’s Jeff Kintner, who earlier won the hammer at 166-11.

Bartlett’s WSU teammate J Hopkins won both hurdles races, while Cougars redshirt Morgan Clem took the women’s 100 and 200, the latter in a wind-aided 25.21. WSU’s Kjirsten Jensen won the women’s hammer in a lifetime-best 176-2.

•Chanel James won the women’s 100 in 12.05 and the Community Colleges of Spokane won three of four relay events at the Willamette Invitational in Salem, Ore.

College golf

Moscow graduate Chris Williams shot a 7-under-par 64 to finish with a 205, earning medalist honors and leading Washington to a win at the Thunderbird Invitational in Tempe, Ariz.

Washington State placed 14th.

Kevin Tucker led the Cougars, shooting 74 on his final day to finish the tournament at 3 under and in 11th place.

•Taylor Porter finished with a 3-under 213 in leading CC Spokane over North Idaho College at The Links Golf Club in Post Falls. The first two rounds were played Friday at Avondale GC in Hayden, Idaho.

Rowing

The Gonzaga women’s varsity 8 rebounded from a loss to Cornell earlier in the day to best Syracuse in the afternoon, beating the Orange by nearly 2 seconds in 6:26.4 in Ithaca, N.Y.

Prep baseball

Blake Sjordal finished the day with four hits, including a double and a triple, and Colville (5-3, 3-1) took a pair from Riverside (1-6, 0-4) in Great Northern League action, 11-10 and 11-1 in Colville. Sawyer Bardwell had the walk-off, game-winning RBI single in the opener before Alex Morgan held the Rams to three hits over five innings in the second game to earn his third win of the season.

•J.J. Guidry pitched five scoreless innings, allowing three hits and three walks while striking out six, and Bubba Pugh added four RBIs as St. Maries (1-8, 1-1) beat Kellogg 18-0 in the opening game of their Intermountain League doubleheader in St. Maries. The Wildcats (3-4, 1-1) took the second game 12-9 to earn the split.

Prep softball

Tia Asbury pitched two complete-game wins, allowing a combined three runs over 12 innings, as St. Maries (4-1, 2-0) swept Kellogg (1-3, 0-2) 12-2, 3-1 in an Intermountain League doubleheader in St. Maries.