College
roundup: Cougs strand 16 in loss to Devils; WSU's John Olerud enshrined and more
March 18,
2019 Moscow Pullman Daily News
TEMPE —
Leaving 16 players on base, including three in the ninth inning, Washington
State absorbed a frustrating 6-5 loss to undefeated Arizona State on Sunday in
the finale of a three-game Pac-12 baseball series.
With one
out in the Cougar ninth, Kodie Kolden and Koby Blunt of Clarkston both singled
and Dillon Plew was struck with a pitch. But relievers Brady Corrigan and Chaz
Montoya struck out Jack Smith and Kyle Manzardo, respectively, to end the game.
The No. 19
Sun Devils (19-0, 3-0) edged the Cougs (6-13, 0-3) by a single run for the
second straight day and became the last undefeated team in the country.
The
Cougars loaded the bases three times in all, winding up scoreless each time.
After producing two runs on a Manzardo single in the third, the Cougs loaded
the bags with no outs but squandered the opportunity with a double play and a
strikeout.
In the
fifth, they again loaded the bases before a shallow fly-out and a strikeout
left them empty-handed.
Collin
Montez doubled twice and singled for WSU while Kolden and Garrett Gouldsmith
tallied two hits apiece. Alika Williams of ASU went 3-for-4 and drove in two
runs.
First
reliever Zane Mills took the loss, allowing two hits and a run in a brief
appearance following Hayden Rosenkrantz’s four-inning stint. Getting the win
was the Devils’ second pitcher, Erik Tolman.
In the
Saturday game, WSU rallied after getting slapped early to forge a late tie,
before a solo homer from Sam Ferri in the bottom of the ninth lifted ASU to an
8-7 win.
WSU pushed
runs across in the eighth and ninth to draw even, but ASU wasn’t shaken. It
prohibited the Cougs from taking the lead late — sneaking out of two innings
and stranding WSU runners — and Ferri wrapped things up with a game-ending
homer down the left-field line.
Plew,
Sinatro, Rob Teel and Andres Alvarez booked two hits apiece for WSU.
SUNDAY
GAME
Washington
St. 102 000 200—5 11 2
Arizona
St. 021 012 00x—6 12 2
Rosenkrantz,
Mills (5), Moyle (5), Leonard (6), Baillie (8) and Teel. Dabovich, Tolman (4),
Burzell (7), Corrigan (7), Montoya (8) and Lin, Ferri.
W — Tolman
(3-0). L — Mills (1-1). Save — Montoya (2).
WSU hits —
Gouldsmith 2, Manzardo, Montez 3 (2-2B), Teel 2, Kolden 2, Blunt.
Arizona
State hits — Torkelson 2, Bishop (2B), Lin, Williams 4, Swift 3 (2B).
SATURDAY
GAME
Washington
St. 000 300 211—7 11 1
Arizona
St. 120 001 301—8 9 1
Block,
Mills (6), Bush (7), Baillie (7), Guerrero (8) and Teel, Notaro (8). Vander
Kooi, Tolman (7), Corrigan (7), Montoya (9) and Ferri.
W —
Montoya (2-0). L — Guerrero (0-1).
Washington
St. hits — Plew (2-2B), Sinatro 2 (3B), Alvarez 2, Manzardo, Montez (2B), Teel
2, Guerrero.
Arizona
St. hits — Hauver, Torkelson 2 (HR), Bishop, Williams (2B), Workman (HR),
Denson, Ferri 2 (HR).
…
Olerud
gets league Hall nod
LAS VEGAS
— Washington State baseball luminary John Olerud — arguably one of the school’s
best-ever athletes — was named to the Pac-12 Hall of Honor on Friday during the
conference men’s basketball tournament.
His
collegiate accolades include two All-America selections and the program’s only
College Athlete of the Year award.
In 2016,
Olerud was tabbed the Pac-12 Conference Player of the Century by a 36-member
panel.
Under
coach Bobo Brayton from 1987-89, Olerud was a pitcher/slugger at WSU, where he
still holds numerous records. On the mound, he ended his career 26-4 with a
3.17 ERA over 241 innings.
In ’88, he
went 15-0 and belted 20 homers to become the only moundman in NCAA history to
log 15 wins and 20 home runs in the same year.
Over three
seasons at the plate, he hit .434.
Before his
third and final year, Olerud suffered a brain seizure and missed 28 games.
However, he returned for the final 27 and hit .359 before getting drafted by
Toronto.
Olerud — a
2001 WSU Athletics Hall of Fame inductee — played 17 professional seasons with
five MLB teams, and won consecutive World Series titles with the Blue Jays in
’92 and ’93.
The list
of Pac-12 Hall of Honor inductees — including 14 Olympic medals, nine bowl
wins, seven All-Americans, five NCAA national championships, four Super Bowls,
two Women’s Basketball Hall of Famers, two Olympic Hall of Famers and two
College Football Hall of Famers — is as follows: Meg Ritchie-Stone, Arizona;
Frank Kush, Arizona St.; Natalie Coughlin, Cal; Lisa Van Goor, Colorado; Bev
Smith, Oregon; Dick Gould, Stanford; Ann Meyers Drysdale, UCLA; Ronnie Lott,
USC; Steve Smith, Sr., Utah; Patricia Bostrom, Washington; Idaho resident Dick
Fosbury, Oregon St.; and Olerud.
TRACK AND
FIELD
Five Cougs
land golds
LOS
ANGELES — Both Washington State track and field teams fared well in the 2019
outdoor season opener at the USC Trojan Invitational, where 32 Cougars placed
top-five or better in a field featuring seven programs.
Molly
Scharmann (pole vault) and Chrisshnay Brown (shot put) were medalists for the
women’s team, while Justin Janke (1,500 meter), Peyton Fredrickson (high jump)
and Alex Cielo (javelin) took golds for the men.
Each
4x100-meter relay team and the 4x400-meter men’s team placed second.
Emily
Coombs nabbed silver — behind Scharmann — Regyn Gaffney finished second in the
100-meter dash (11.83) and Natalie Ackerley set a personal record in the 800
with a 2:08.57 mark.
Runners-up
for the men included Kyler Little (1500 meter), Keelan Halligan (high jump),
Brock Eager (hammer throw) and Jake Ulrich (400 meter).
WSU
medalists
Women
Pole vault
— Molly Scharmann, 12-8 1/4.
Shot put —
Chrisshnay Brown, 48-8 3/4.
Men
1500m —
Justin Janke, 3:51.52.
High jump
— Peyton Fredrickson, 6-10 3/4.
Javelin —
Alex Cielo, 188-11.
SWIMMING
Cougars
finish eighth
CLEVELAND
— The Washington State swim team finished eighth at the National Invitational
Championship at Cleveland State University thanks in part to three fourth-place
finishes on the event’s final day.
Pullman
High graduate and sophomore Taylor McCoy on Saturday placed fourth in the 200
backstroke by dropping more than a second off her preliminary time to touch the
wall in 1:57.25. WSU also got fourth-place finishes from Lauren Burckel in the
200 breastroke (in 2:13.66) and from the Cougars’ 400 relay team (3:21.90).
Team
scores — 1, Akron, 637.5. 2, Rice, 617. 3, Florida International, 465. 4, Boise
State, 364. 5, Naval Academy, 335.5. 6, San Jose State University, 301.5. 7,
South Carolina, 301. 8, Washington State, 293. ... t 47, Howard and Fairfield,
2.
All above
from Moscow Pullman Daily News
::::::::::::
Spokane
Think the
snow and cold were bad this winter? In 1969, Spokane saw 3 1/2 feet on the
ground
Sun.,
March 17, 2019, 5 a.m.
By Will
Campbell Spokane S-R
Doctors
snowmobiled to patients. Roofs collapsed under the snow. People stranded in
snowdrifts died.
It was the
winter of 1969, and snow was so high, children could ride their Flexible Flyer
sleds off their roofs onto the snowpack. It was a winter when school attendance
in Spokane was lower than at the height of the 1918 flu pandemic.
Now that
this year’s winter appears to be in the rearview mirror, it stacks up against
some of the biggest winters in Spokane. Like in 2008-09, when Spokane received
the most measurable snow. This year, the most ever accumulated snow stubbornly
remained to set a late-season depth record that topped 1968-69.
Yet the
winter of ’69 holds a place in the record books and in the collective memory of
Spokane. The oddities of that winter collected as fast as the snowfall.
It was a
year with simpler technology for forecasting, transportation and communication.
It’s one that people remember as an outlier – at the time, it set some snowfall
records.
And like
this year, it began mild.
Calm
before the storms
In
November 1968, Richard Nixon was elected the 37th president of the United
States and Spokane saw 6 fewer inches of snow than the monthly average.
November
passed, and the first three weeks in December were also warmer than normal, apart
from a few snow showers that left an average of 2 inches on the ground.
Then
things got cold.
An arctic
air mass crept south on Dec. 27, bringing subzero temperatures. The daily high
temperature dropped from the 30s on Dec. 27 to minus 9 days later; the low
temperature dipped to minus 25 by the end of the month.
Dec. 29
and 30 brought the coldest two-day stretch that any currently living person has
experienced in Spokane. The only winter that had colder days was 1889.
The cold
caused power lines to “tighten up and snap.” Deaconess Hospital reported an
increase in pneumonia and flu patients. And the city was slammed with about 200
phone calls from people needing help with their frozen water pipes.
At the
time, Spokane Fire Chief Bill Dunham advised homeowners to leave a water tap
running throughout the night to prevent pipes from freezing. He also suggested
wrapping pipes in rags and pouring hot water over them.
People
were suffering, but it was just the beginning.
January:
tragedy and triumph
The year
1969 was memorable for a number of reasons: Woodstock, the moon landing, and in
Spokane, the snow.
It dawned
with 11 inches on the ground, 7 of them from New Year’s Eve.
On Jan.
19, the snow caused its first wave of destruction: Store owner Paul Clark was
heating up his store to melt some of the snow when the roof collapsed and
damaged a camper and trucks.
Nixon was
sworn into office, and an another arctic air mass moved over Spokane. But for
the next four days, not much new snow would fall – it was just the bitter cold.
On Jan.
22, two youngsters, ages 8 and 10, died in a sledding accident on the South Hill.
They were hit by a car driven by a man who couldn’t see the sled because the
snowbanks were four feet high. The brother of one of the victims was sledding
just behind the two and witnessed the tragedy.
A minus 19
low hit Spokane on Jan. 23rd, and peach, cherry, apricots and grape farmers
reported their orchards had suffered heavy damage. They predicted a fruit
shortage for the year.
Between
Jan. 25 and 31, 7 inches of snow fell on Spokane, bringing the total snowfall
to 39 inches.
Meteorologist
Robert Small wore a blanket during an interview with the Spokesman-Review.
“Really, it’s been a miserable winter,” he said. Small had been gathering
statistics and “hovering over the strange occult machines that second-guess
mother nature.” He advised suffering Spokanites to move to Florida if they
didn’t want to shiver.
The city
had been steadily plowing streets and was already out $207,000 for snow
removal. About 2,100 tons of chemicals had been spread throughout Spokane, but
temperatures were too cold to allow them to melt the snow.
On Sunday,
Jan. 26, Spokane would break snowfall records. Albert Ayars, Spokane Public
Schools superintendent, was hesitant to cancel school. He began his daily
struggle with making the decision, but he decided to keep the schools open on
Monday while most of the county didn’t.
“Unless we
get more snow, we’ll be open Monday morning,” he said.
Almost 10
inches of snow fell that day and Spokane set a record for accumulated snowfall
at 32 inches.
Students
trudged through snow to school. People strung colorful bandannas, antenna
toppers and red tape from their cars to indicate where the plows should avoid
Then
another tragedy struck.
Near Omak,
Washington, five friends got stuck in a snowdrift. Three went to find help, but
the two left in the car, an 18- and a 19-year-old, died. They had left the car
running, and the surrounding snow trapped the carbon monoxide from the running
engine. The toxic gas asphyxiated them, and they were found dead later that
day.
But there
was also triumph.
A doctor
drove a snowmobile to Liberty Lake to help a woman, Barbara Soran, while she
was in labor. She was able to make the trek to Sacred Heart in the snow before
the baby was born.
Ayars
caved and canceled school the next day “to reduce the danger facing children
walking to school,” he told the Spokesman-Review at the time. Absenteeism had
been higher than at the height of the 1918 flu epidemic, he said, and he was
hit with calls from parents complaining about their kids having to travel
through the snow.
School was
out and students rejoiced.
Jude
Dykeman-Bly was a senior in high school at the time. She remembers the snow “so
high we could sled right over the barb wire fences,” according to a comment on
a 2016 Facebook post from the Spokesman-Review about that winter.
Susan Nash
Walker was a sophomore at Shadle Park High School. She remembers shoveling snow
off the roof of her two story house and where it fell, she made a pile so high
she couldn’t see out the windows, she wrote on the Facebook post.
A
staggering 220 city workers launched an attack to plow the city with
round-the-clock 12-hour shifts and 70 plowing units. Some had “huge snow
loaders” and others had simple hand shovels.
It had
become “almost a battle for survival,” said the city manager’s engineering
assistant.
An
editorial in The Spokesman-Review from that day praised crews for “handling
snow trouble well” but complained that people leaving their cars on city
streets were making plowing more difficult – “an annoyance that makes a hard
job more difficult.”
The
Spokesman-Review published a picture of a birdhouse topped with a column of
snow about 32 inches tall. The caption read: “Sunday’s snowfall set records for
amount of snow on the ground in many areas of the Inland Empire, leaving behind
buried streets, buried houses – even buried bird houses.”
“Not since
before the first snows on Dec. 19 had a citizen seen bare earth locally,” the
Spokesman-Review reported.
Near
midnight, the roof of a multi-level downtown storage garage for Utter Motor Co.
collapsed under the snow. Workers scrambled to remove cars from the first floor
of the structure, fearing further collapse. It was the second car storage
facility to collapse in 24 hours, the other being Ernie Majer Ford Co., which
caused an estimated $75,000 in damage.
The next
day, Ayars closed school again, and the city was ready to punish drivers for
not moving their cars.
Motorcycle
cops led a parade of snowplows through the frosted brick buildings of downtown
Spokane. Blaring through loudspeakers, the cops warned residents to move their
cars from the streets before they were towed away because plows needed to push
the snow off the streets. Police impounded more than 50 cars in two days. But
they showed some mercy: Cars that showed evidence of recently being used were
moved to side streets.
Washington
Gov. Daniel J. Evans placed Spokane County on emergency status to help get food
and fuel to isolated ranchers, and the month ended with high temperatures at
11.1 degrees below normal. Lows were 15.4 degrees below normal.
But
winter’s worst was only about halfway through.
February:
winter’s slow retreat
The month
started slightly warmer and without new snow.
“Snow on
the streets in Spokane melted Sunday, revealing the scars left by the long
battle between plows and tire chains and record snow depth,” the
Spokesman-Review reported Feb. 3.
“It’s too
early yet to tell how extensive the damage is, but based on early signs, it
looks bad – very bad,” a city official told the paper.
More snow
began to fall that day, and Spokane also saw more tragedy: A 72-year-old woman
caught her clothes on fire from a hot plate while trying to heat up coffee in
her home. She ran outside, catching the attention of a neighbor, who ran to
her.
He pushed
her into a snowbank to extinguish the flames.
The next
day the county’s engineering office reported it had spent $350,000 in road
clearing so far in the season – four times the normal amount. A fourth roof
collapsed in Spokane, this time at the Taylor-Edwards Warehouse and Transfer,
Inc. Then another warehouse roof collapsed: Polar Cold Storage warehouse’s
10-year-old roof failed, but the snow fell onto frozen food items, making the
damage less severe. Still, estimated damage was upward of $35,000.
Cold
temperatures on Feb. 6 slowed winter’s retreat, and the heavy snowpack had city
officials worried about flooding.
All
winter, people had been slipping on sidewalks or falling off roofs. Deaconess
Hospital reported an average of three bone fractures per day due to the
weather. The hospital also had five heart attack cases caused by patients’
“overexertion while shoveling snow,” and “an especially severe accident
resulted when a snowmobile ran into a barbed wire fence.” There were a few
frostbite cases caused by long-distance drives through mountain passes.
The
weather was harder to predict in 1969: Forecasters “are predicting everything
from spring breezes to a major blizzard, basing their conclusions on everything
from home barometers to rheumatism in the big toe,” reported the
Spokesman-Review.
Between Feb.
8 and 11, warmer weather and heavy rain melted snow. The high temperature in
Spokane spiked to 40 degrees and snow depth decreased roughly 15 to 20 inches
from the start of the month, according to meteorologist Stephen Bodnar,
currently working at the National Weather Service in Spokane.
On the 8th
of February 1969, Spokane Community College student Mary Jo Hilterbrant stuck a
sign in the snow that read, “Think Spring,” and things got easier from there.
The next
day, the sun came out after a long absence, for exactly seven hours and 19
minutes, , according to the Spokesman-Review.
Winter
ended with one last little bite, as half an inch fell April 29. It melted
quickly
::::::::::::::::::
Going
cheap on coach's salary is no way for WSU to elevate men’s hoops
By Barry
Bolton Cougfan.com
The old
adage rings true: WSU needs to spend money to make money on hoops.
CF.C
COMMENTARY
COUGAR
BASKETBALL FANS who believe Washington State can spend frugally on a new coach
to ease the $4.2 million buyout paid to Ernie Kent are in for a rude awakening:
low-balling your next head coach on salary would be Exhibit A in the recruiting
wars that your school doesn't give a rip about the sport. Paying the market
rate in your conference is critical to being viewed as a Power 6 conference
peer.
As much as
Coug fans grumbled about Kent’s $1.4 million annual salary, it's near the
bottom of what Pac-12 hoops coaches are paid. According to USA Today, Kent’s
salary was No. 9 on a list of 10. Only Cal’s Wykie Jones, in his first
head-coaching job, made less than Kent, at $1 million. Stanford and USC are private institutions and
didn’t release figures but it’s a sure bet both are paying their basketball
coach more than Kent made. USC's Andy Enfield was believed to be making $1
million a year when brought on in 2013 and then was given an undisclosed raise
and extension when Pitt tried to nab him in 2016.
If WSU
tries to go low in its new hire, it would basically tell the college basketball
world it doesn't value men's basketball. It puts a big sign out on the lawn
that you are small time. WSU already is
viewed as the hardest job in the Power 6. Landing somewhere in the range of
market rate is a must.
Four
Pac-12 coaches made between $1 million and $2 million this year, and five made
between $2 million and $3 million. WSU surely doesn't have to match Larry
Krystkowiak's $3.57 million yearly salary at Utah, but it does need to be competitive
from a league standpoint.
If you pay
the new coach $700,000 a year, you're effectively proclaiming that you consider
yourself a Mountain West school.
Any coach
coming to WSU will do so knowing that with no significant facilities
enhancements planned in the near- to mid-term, the climb up is going to be
steep. Logic and business sense dictate
that coach is going to want to maximize what he’s getting paid for the risk.
WE'VE
DISCUSSED THE IMPORTANCE of making charter flights a regular part of the
basketball program. Look around the mid-major landscape and you’ll see
numerous schools that have charter
flights for their teams while WSU has none.
But this issue actually goes much deeper.
WSU offers
no charters for recruiting either.
This is
standard issue for the entire Big Ten and most of the Pac-12 -- and none of
those schools are in places where commercial air travel requires a stop in
Seattle or a drive to Spokane to get anywhere outside the region. Using a
charter, WSU's head coach can see, say, seven prospects in two days. Flying commercial, a WSU coach can see
generally two prospects in two days.
In
recruiting, where there are only a certain number of days coaches can be out on
the recruiting trail, getting at least some charter flights are not only
valuable, they're necessary to keep up with the competition.
Yes, WSU
needs facilities enhancements, and those are going to cost millions more. But paying its next coach and the assistant
coaches more in line with market value, and providing charter flights, are the
first steps to turning the hoops program around.
:::::::::::::::
Connor
Neville transferring, WSU now with 5 spring QBs
By Braden
Johnson
Cougfan.com
PULLMAN –
What was once a seven-man quarterback room for Washington State has now been
reduced to five players. Third-year sophomore Connor Neville announced on
Twitter he is transferring from WSU.
Neville's
tweet says he is immediate eligibility to compete elsewhere. Neville will also
be free to transfer to any school, as the NCAA passed legislation in October
that no longer allows coaching staffs to dictate a player’s list of schools
he/she may transfer to.
The
"run off waiver" Neville refers to: a player can petition to be ruled
immediately eligible if the NCAA agrees the player is leaving due to
circumstances beyond his/her control, such as not realistically having a chance
to compete for playing time, i.e. they were "run off" from the program.
A player needs to be in good academic standing and the previous school has to
agree with the request.
The news
comes just five days after CF.C first reported graduate transfer Gage Gubrud
sustained an injury to his leg or ankle during
Midnight Maneuvers workouts that is expected to sideline him for all of
spring practices. Neville was expected to compete with fellow underclassmen
Cammon Cooper, John Bledsoe and Gunner Cruz for positioning on WSUs quarterback
depth chart, with fifth-year seniors Anthony Gordon and Trey Tinsley the
leading candidates with Gubrud on paper.
NEVILLE’S
DEPARTURE LIKELY equates to increased opportunities to compete with the first
and second-string offense in scored scrimmages this spring for Bledsoe, Cooper
and Cruz. During the season, Mike Leach tends to divide reps as close to evenly
as possible with underclassmen or scout team quarterbacks and Neville split
drives with Bledsoe and Cooper in Thursday Night Football scrimmages in 2018.
A former
Scout.com 4-star recruit, Neville was sometimes hailed by fans as WSU’s
quarterback of the future after he verbally committed to the Cougars in October
2015. But Neville never made a serious run at WSU’s starting job and departs
without having seen the field for the Cougars.
Related:
The file on Connor Neville
He was
stuck behind former starters Luke Falk, Tyler Hilinski and Gardner Minshew in
2017 and 2018. Last fall, Leach indicated Cooper was his fourth-string
quarterback on the Cougars' depth chart.
NEVILLE
CAME TO WSU after putting up gaudy passing numbers at Wilsonville High in
Oregon and possessed one of the strongest arms in the Cougars’ quarterback
room. He tossed 72 touchdowns against 18 interceptions at Wilsonville and
sometimes launched passes that exceeded 50 yards in practices for WSU. Having
played in a spread offense at Wilsonville, Neville also had decent foot speed
and quickness that enabled him to extend plays in scrimmages for the Cougars.
But
Neville struggled with inaccuracy and inconsistency in practices on his
mid-range and vertical throws. At times, he had a tendency to try and force
throws and drives could stall as a result. Leach said during Alamo Bowl
practices in December WSU was a “work in progress” behind Gordon and Tinsley.
COMMENTS
For the
long-range picture, WSU’s 2020 quarterbacking depth is slight -- with just
three current quarterbacks (Bledsoe, Cooper, Cruz) to return. Indeed, the notion that Leach would look to
sign two QBs in the 2020 recruiting class will now gather steam, with Neville's
transfer added to the departures after this season of Gubrud, Tinsley and
Gordon.
Neville
joins safety Deion Singleton, RUSH Mason Vinyard and RB Caleb Perry as the
fourth Cougar scholarship player to put his name into the transfer portal this
offseason, Three scholie players departed earlier in 2018, with WR Drue Jackson
and safety D'Angelo McKenzie leaving the team midseason, and CB Myles
Green-Richards putting his name into the portal in November.
