April 1, 2007

Final Stats

BERKELEY, Calif. - Scott Suttmeier's three-run home run ignited the Cougar offense and Matt Way retired the final six batters for his first save of 2007 as Washington State defeated California, 9-6, in the final game of a Pacific-10 Conference series Sunday afternoon at Evans Diamond.

With the win the Cougars improve to 16-12 on the season, 1-5 in Pac-10 play while Cal sees its five-game winning streak snapped as it falls to 17-14, 2-1 in conference action.

In the third the Cougars tied the game as the junior outfielder Suttmeier hit the first home run of his Cougar career, a three-run shot over the wall in right that also brought home Cody Bartlett and Jared Prince. It began a stretch of nine Cougar runs over the next four innings.

Cal jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first as Stephen Carlson led off the inning with a triple then scored on Jeff Kobernus's sacrifice fly. David Cooper and Jordan Karnofsky added solo home runs in the inning off Cougar starter Connor Lambert. Lambert settled down after the first, retiring seven straight at one point and facing the minimum over the next three innings.

After the Suttmeier home run the Cougar offense took over, scoring two runs in each of the next three innings. Jeff Miller and Paul Gran had RBI hits in the fourth, Zach Borba had a pinch-hit RBI single in the fifth, an inning where WSU took advantage of two Cal errors to score another run. The lead was increased to 9-4 in the sixth as Bartlett scored on a wild pitch after leading off the inning with a double and Prince came around on Travis Coulter's RBI double.

Cal added single runs in the fifth, sixth and seventh, the final one on a Charlie Cutler home run, but it was not enough as Way came on in the eighth and retired six of the seven batters he faced. Way was the fourth Cougar pitcher on the afternoon as Steve Kost and Michael Ratigan combined for two innings in relief of Lambert. Lambert picked up his first conference win and improved to 3-1 on the season.

Offensively WSU pounded out 10 hits, two each by Suttmeier, Bartlett and Borba, who came off the bench in the fifth and went 2-for-2 with an RBI.

Cal was led by Cooper, who hit his eighth home run of the season in the first and finished the day with a pair of hits. Starter Nick Nunez suffered his first loss of the year as he fell to 2-1, lasting just 3 1/3 innings, allowing five runs on five hits.

WSU concludes its four-game Northern California swing with a nonconference game Monday afternoon at the University of San Francisco. First pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m.

WSU BASEBALL
Washington State	003 222 000 - 9 10 2
California	300 011 100 - 6   8 2
WP - Connor Lambert (3-1). LP - Nick Nunez (2-1).  Save - Matt Way (1).
WSU - Connor Lambert, Steve Kost (6), Michael Ratigan (6), Matt Way (8) and Greg Lagreid
CAL - Nick Nunez, Dane Ferguson (4), Craig Bennigson (5), Sean Watson (6), Matt Gorgen (6) and Charlie Cutler
HR - Scott Suttmeier, David Cooper, Jordan Karnofsky, Charlie Cutler.
WSU Hits - Scott Suttmeier 2, Zach Borba 2, Cody Bartlett 2, Travis Coulter, Greg Lagreid, Jeff Miller, Paul Gran.
CAL Hits - David Cooper 2, Jordan Karnofsky 2, Charlie Cutler, Michael Brady, Stephen Carlson, Josh Satin.
E - Gran 2, Carlson, Brady. 2B - Bartlett, Coulter, Miller. 3B - Carlson.