Gonzaga Baseball Ends Season With Three Road Games
5/15/2000 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 15, 2000
SPOKANE, Wash. -
Gonzaga (27-23)
vs.
Washington (25-26)
May 16 @ Husky Park (Seattle) - 7:00 PM
May 17 @ Husky Park (Seattle) - 7:00 PM
Series: (Washington Leads 51-42)
Gonzaga vs. Lewis-Clark State (52-11)
May 18 @ Harris Field (Lewiston) 6:30 PM
Series: (Lewis-Clark State Leads 51-47-1)
THE WEEK AHEAD: Gonzaga wraps up its 2000 baseball season with three games on the road including a Tuesday-Wednesday set in Seattle against Washington and the season finale on Thursday night against Lewis-Clark State in Lewiston. The L-C State game is a rescheduled game from May 2, when the Zags had to move the game due to a make-up game against Pepperdine in Southern California. With one more win in the final three games, Gonzaga will improve on last season's 27-23-2 mark and two more wins would tie Gonzaga for its best record in the last ten seasons. The Zags posted back-to-back 29 wins seasons during their final two campaigns as members of the PAC-10 North Conference. A sweep of the final three games would put Gonzaga on the 30 win plateau for the first time since 1990 when Gonzaga went 37-21. Gonzaga has already completed its most successful WCC season to date, improving to 17-13 with a weekend series win over San Francisco. The 17 conference victories are also the most by a Gonzaga team since the Bulldogs went 25-7 in 1981 winning the old NorPac conference title and advancing to the NCAA Regional Tournament.
HOME SEASON COMES TO AN END: Gonzaga wrapped up its 2000 home season over the weekend with a West Coast Conference series win over San Francisco. The Bulldogs posted six run innings in both games of Saturday's double-header to defeat the Dons 7-6 and 12-4. In both games, Steve Bennett and Barry Matthews collected wins on the mound improving their season totals to 9-4. The nine wins are the most by a Gonzaga pitcher since Darin Blood dominated PAC-10 North opponents in 1995 with a 13-3 record en route to winning Pitcher of the Year honors. On Senior Day, it was San Francisco sophomore Peter Dunkle that stole the show against the Zags tossing a three hit, 4-0, shut out to salvage the final WCC game of the season for the Dons. Barry Matthews was able to collect one of the Zags three hits on Sunday to extend his hitting streak to a season best 24 games.
HUSKY BITS: Washington comes into this mid-week series against Gonzaga on a three-game losing skid after being swept at Arizona State of the weekend. This will be second time the Bulldogs have visited the Emerald City this season going 2-2 on the previous trip. In February, Gonzaga pitching seemed to baffle Husky batters as the Zags struck out 59 batters in four games with three GU hurlers posting at least 10 strike outs. Steve Bennett led the Gonzaga staff with an 18 K performance while Barry Matthews set down 14 and Sean Lichter 10. That four game strike out total represents almost a seventh of all Washington strike outs over a 51 game schedule. Prior to the sweep at ASU, Washington had been on a role winning five straight with a three-game sweep of Washington State and a two-game broom job on WCC member Portland.
L-C STATE: The defending NAIA National Champions face Gonzaga in the final Bulldogs game of the season. Earlier this year, L-C State pitching stranded 15 Gonzaga runners on base including four at third base as the Warriors held on for a 5-4 victory on a cold and rainy day in Spokane. This game is a rescheduled event from May 2, when Gonzaga had to make a trip to Southern California for a make-up conference game with Pepperdine.
HERTZ WINS NO. 600: Steve Hertz is in the midst of his third decade of coaching at Gonzaga as he leads the Bulldogs for his 21st season as head coach. An All-Conference pitcher at Gonzaga in the early 1970's, Hertz guided the Bulldogs to an NCAA Regional Final in his first season as head coach in 1978. Following a two-year stint as head coach at UC-Irvine, Hertz returned to his alma mater in 1981 and has guided the Bulldogs through three different conferences. In his 20 years at Gonzaga, Hertz has compiled a 551-546-5 mark while his 22-year career record stands at 610-608-5. Hertz won career game 600 on April 8 as the Zags defeated Saint Mary's College, 6-4, in the second game of a double-header.
DO-NUT FOR FIRST TIME SINCE 1998: San Francisco sophomore Peter Dunkle was able to accomplish on Sunday, what no pitcher has been able to do in the last 142 games as he pitched a three-hit shut out against Gonzaga. The last team to put nine zeros on the board against the Zags was Pepperdine when the Waves turned in a 5-0 victory over Gonzaga on March 8, 1998. Over that same period of time, Gonzaga's pitching staff has shut out opponents on three occasions including two blankings of Whitworth during the 2000 season.
GONZAGA STAFF SETS SCHOOL STRIKE OUT RECORD: The Gonzaga pitching staff turned in a 17 strike out performance against San Francisco over the weekend to set a new school record for strike outs in a season. Led by Steve Bennett's 109 K's this year the Gonzaga staff has mowed down 390 opposing batters to pass the former GU record of 380 set during the 1974 season. That 1974 team was also led by a dominating pitcher in the person of Mike Davey, who set down 101 batters on his way to becoming the only Gonzaga pitcher in history to record two 100-plus strike out years. While Steve Bennett is GU's lead strike out artist, the Zags have several pitchers who can also set down opposing batters. Barry Matthews ranks second on the team with 72 strike outs followed by Scott Stencil at 44 K's with Sean Lichter and David Hixson ranking fourth and fifth on the team with 38 and 35 strike outs respectively.
SIX SPOT SEEMS TO DO THE TRICK: While scoring runs is a common occurrence in college baseball, Gonzaga has taken advantage of the big inning an obscene amount of times this baseball season. The Bulldogs have scored four or more runs in an inning on 19 occasions this year, but their knack for putting up a six spot may be unmatched on the college level. The Zags have posted six or more runs in an inning on nine occasions this year, going 9-0 in those games with 8 wins coming at home.
Date Opponent Runs Final Score March 4 vs. Pepperdine 7 12-9 March 19 vs. Loyola Marymount 6 19-4 March 25 at San Francisco 6 11-5 April 19 vs. Whitworth 7 11-0 April 22 vs. Portland 6 9-6 April 23 vs. Portland 6 14-5 April 28 vs. Santa Clara 6 13-4 May 13 vs. San Francisco 6 7-6 May 13 vs. San Francisco 6 12-4
MATTHEWS HITTING STREAK LONGEST IN WCC: With hits in each of Gonzaga's three weekend games, junior Barry Matthews extended his current hitting streak to 24 games. That streak is the longest hitting streak for a West Coast Conference player this season passing San Francisco's Tag Bozied's streak of 23 consecutive games with a hit. The streak also is the second longest active streak in NCAA Division I baseball, trailing only Penn State's Michael Campo who is on a 31 game streak. Matthews is also in range of becoming the Gonzaga record holder in that category needing just one hit on Tuesday against Washington to tie the school record of 25 games set by Larry Patterson during the 1977 season. The West Coast Conference record for consecutive games with a hit is 30 set by Matt Howard of Pepperdine in 1988.
BAY CLOSES OUT WEEKEND IN RECORD BOOK: Jason Bay finished his final home stand in a Gonzaga uniform crossing the plate for two runs to move himself into yet another record book category. With his two runs scored, Bay moved into a tie for ninth place on the single season runs scored list matching Lenn Sakata's 55 runs from the 1973 season. In addition to the runs, Bay has also moved into second on the career home run list and fourth on the single season home run list.
HIXSON CLIMBS SAVES CHART: Junior relief pitcher David Hixson has solidified himself as the Gonzaga closer with good efforts out of the Zags bullpen. Over the weekend, Hixson worked two innings against San Francisco to collect his fifth save of the year. His five saves place him in a tie for the WCC lead and also move Hixson into a tie for third place on the single season saves chart. With one more save in Gonzaga's three remaining games, Hixson will match injured Bulldog Tucker Urdahl's mark of six saves set during the 1999 season. The Gonzaga single season saves record is seven set by Randy Bostic during the 1982 season when Gonzaga went 30-28.
BENNETT COLLECTS WIN TO END HOME CAREER: An emotional Steve Bennett took the mound for the final time at August/A.R.T. Stadium on Saturday afternoon and it appeared that he may have saved his greatest performance for his last. Bennett tossed 5.2 innings of hitless baseball against San Francisco to open the game and allowed only two hits all afternoon. Unfortunately, one of those was a three run home run that had the Zags down 4-1. Gonzaga immediately picked up their pitching leader scoring six runs to give Bennett his ninth victory of the season and 21st of his career. With his seven innings of work Bennett also became just the 11th Gonzaga pitcher to amass more than 100 innings of work moving himself into the single season top ten on that list.
ALL THAT AND BRAINS TOO: While Gonzaga has had a good season on the playing field several Gonzaga baseball players have been getting the job done in the class room as well. Senior Steve Bennett and junior Jared Hertz were named to the CoSIDA District 8 All-Academic team late last week. Both are now candidates for Academic All-America honors. Bennett has already finished his studies with a 3.60 in human resources management, while Hertz currently boasts a 3.90 in finance.
RADIO BROADCASTS: Gonzaga's final radio broadcasts for baseball in the 2000 season will be this Tuesday and Wednesday when the Zags take on Washington in Seattle. Start time for both contests is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. with the baseball pre-game show starting ten minutes prior. Veteran broadcaster Bob Robertson will provide all the play-by-play action for Gonzaga on local Spokane radio station KTRW AM 970.
