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Bulldogs Wrap Up Regular Season With A Win Over WSU
May 19, 2009
SPOKANE, Wash. – Gonzaga University closed out the regular season with an 8-7 victory over Washington State University at the Patterson Baseball Complex and Washington Trust Field Tuesday night. Next up for the Bulldogs is the WCC Championship Series with Loyola Marymount University beginning 6:30 p.m. Friday at the Patterson Baseball Complex and Washington Trust Field. Game two of the best-of-three series is slated for 3 p.m. Saturday with Sunday’s if-necessary game three scheduled for a noon start. Drew Heid paced the Bulldogs (33-16) 13-hit attack with a 3-for-4 performance as the Zags recorded win No. 33 on the year, the most since the 1990 team posted 37 wins. Gonzaga used a four-run first inning and some timely relief pitching from Cody Martin to end the regular season with a win and clinch the season-series with the Cougars (28-23) two games to one. After surrendering two runs to the Cougars in the top of the first the Bulldogs sent nine men to the plate in the bottom half of the inning, scoring four runs to take a 4-2 lead. Heid reached on a hit-by-pitch and Tyson Van Winkle followed with a base-hit past a diving shortstop and into left field. Ryan Wiegand then earned a walk to load the bases before Mark Castellitto’s fielder’s choice ground ball to second brought home the first run. Chatwood followed with a three-run homer to left field on the first pitch he saw from WSU starter David Stilley to give the Zags the lead. Gonzaga added a run in the second inning on Castellitto’s ground ball RBI single through the left side to build the lead to 5-2. In the fourth inning, WSU took advantage of a Bulldog miscue to bring two runs across and cut the Zags lead to 5-4. With two outs and a runner on first, Matt Fanelli grounded a ball to Ernesto Ortiz at shortstop whose throw to Wiegand at first sailed high and into the Gonzaga dugout to allow both runners to move up to second and third. Garry Huykendall then drove home the two runs with a double to right center.
The Bulldogs used a couple of two-out hits to score a pair of runs in the fifth inning to open their lead to 7-4. Evan Wells drove home the inning’s first run on a two-out line drive single to left field to score Grant Kveder and Heid followed with an RBI-triple to score Wells. The left-handed hitting Heid drove a ball off of the right centerfield wall and then raced around to third to record his team-leading eighth triple, the second most triples in a single season ever recorded by Bulldog. Larry Patterson owns the school-record with 12 triples, set in 1977. Gonzaga picked up another run in the sixth inning on a Kveder RBI single to center, scoring Castellitto from second to make it 8-4. WSU battled back in the seventh, using back-to-back lead off hits and a hit-by-pitch to load the bases with nobody out. Gonzaga reliever Andy Hunter struck out Michael Weber but Cody Bartlett followed with a high bouncing single over Chatwood at third base to score two runs and make it 8-6. WSU then picked up another run as Hunter was called for a balk, bringing another run home to cut the Zags lead to 8-7. The Cougars made a run at a comeback in the eighth inning. A lead-off walk and a one-out single put runners first and third for WSU which forced the Zags to summon Martin in from the bullpen to face WSU leading home run hitter Drew Jones. Martin struck out Jones with 1-2 fastball on the outside corner and then got Jay Ponciano to fly out to Heid in shallow left center to strand the tying run at third. He then fired a scoreless ninth inning to record his sixth save and send the Bulldogs into this weekend’s West Coast Conference Championship Series on a winning note. Gonzaga starting pitcher Ryan Carpenter earned the win to improve to 6-3 on the season. Chatwood finished with three RBI and Castellitto also drove in two and scored twice.
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