Guess who won

• The former should come as the lesser of the surprises. After all, Hisashi Iwakuma was pitching and he’s been nearly unhittable recently. (Actually, the correct term would be unscoreuponable, but I don’t believe that is a word.) And Iwakuma was ace-like again last night against the woeful Houston Astros. Only an unearned run in the third inning marred his seven innings as he improved to 7-1, with a team-best – for a starter – 1.79 earned run average. We won’t get into the debate on whether he’s the Mariners ace right now – right now I believe he is – but it sure is nice to throw a guy out there every fifth day that makes you want to follow what the M’s are doing, isn’t it?

• Speaking of aces, Bud Nameck, the voice of Washington State basketball, missed a hole-in-one by about the length of Kate Upton’s little toe yesterday and I was there to witness it (where the 175-yard shot ended up is pictured here). Yep, I was a witness to a lot of great golf shots as our four-man scramble team took home the prestigious Wet Dog Fur Open golf title at MeadowWood. Sure, Christian Caple, my son Tyler, a copy editor for the Review sports department, and Bud carried the load, but I contributed. Let’s see. I drove the cart well. I gave the guys an occasional read on putts. I found a couple balls. And, oh ya, I made sure we remembered to put out the long drive and closest-to-the pin signs. Other than that, I was pretty much a spectator, though I did have a hand in one of our birdies on a par 5. Yep, the last 8-inch putt was mine. But what the hay, it was all about the team, right? And we won.

•••

• WSU: With Christian probably somewhere nursing a sunburn, I will make sure to get to all the Washington State links. And there are quite a few. … Oregon State will join UCLA at the college World Series after its 4-3 victory over Kansas State on Monday. The Pac-12 received just four of the 64 NCAA berths. It will have two of the eight teams in Omaha . … Oregon may learn its NCAA fate soon and then it will become part of this list . … A couple things from ESPN.com’s Pac-12 blog, including a look at offenses that need to bounce back and each school’s most hyped newcomer . … USA Today is counting down all the college football teams. WSU comes in at No. 93 . Spoiler alert: You may not want to read the first sentence. … Auburn thinks it has the ideal opener .

• Preps: We have a youth sports notebook each week during the summer.

• Mariners: We’ve already shared the news the M’s won, with the big story being Iwakuma’s pitching . But there are other things to share, like the news Mike Morris would be on the disabled list if Justin Smoak were healthy. And the news Smoak is getting better . How about Jon Garland being released by the Rockies or another look at the rebuilding plan ? Dustin Ackley is hitting the ball well at Tacoma, the Astros are pretty darn bad and last night’s game shouldn’t have been that close .

• Seahawks: Hey, Tarvaris Jackson is back on the market. Wonder if the Hawks have any interest ? Let’s move on. … The Hawks begin minicamp today and Pete Carroll has a number of issues to work out.

• Sounders: The U.S. National Team will play at CenturyLink tonight and a crowd of at least 35,000 isn’t enough for some folks . Either is the quality of the grass playing surface .

•••

• Every year the team I’ve been a part of has won the WDFO (notice I didn’t write “my team” or “I won” ), the golfing summer has been much better. So I guess I better start playing a bit more often. Especially if the weather stays this nice. Until later …