Technicality allows Sasquatch to host playoffs

Dave Keller and his Community Colleges of Spokane Sasquatch let their chance to win a regular-season regional title slip away last week, dropping both games of Wednesday’s doubleheader against Wenatchee Valley.

But they came back in a big way Saturday, sweeping a doubleheader from Treasure Valley to finish as runner-up to Columbia Basin College in the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges East Region standings.

Because of a technicality, they also nailed down the host’s role – normally reserved for the regular-season champion – for the East Region playoffs that will play out Friday and Saturday at Avista Stadium.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to host it,” said Keller, the Sasquatch’s 11th-year head coach, “which makes it even more exciting.”

CBC, Keller said, earned the right to host the playoffs but could not secure a lighted field for Friday’s four-game schedule. As a result, the host’s role fell to second-place CCS.

“The same thing happened to us in 2005 when we won the regional title,” Keller said. “We were supposed to host the playoff that year, but at that time Gonzaga was using Avista and we weren’t able to get it, so we had to go down to Pasco to play instead.”

The Sasquatch (29-19 overall, 17-11 in the East Region) will face third-place Wenatchee Valley (29-20, 16-12) in Friday’s 10 a.m. first-round opener of the double-elimination playoffs that will determine the East’s second representative to the NWAACC championships in Longview, Wash., on May 24-28.

Columbia Basin (34-14, 18-10), which assured itself a berth in the NWAACC championships by winning the regular-season divisional title, will take on fourth-place finisher Walla Walla (29-20, 16-12) in Friday’s second game at 1 p.m.

First-round losers will play a loser-out game at 4 p.m. Friday, with the first-round winners are scheduled to meet at 7 that same evening. Another elimination game will be played at 11 a.m. Saturday, with the winner of that game advancing to the finals, where it will have to beat the playoffs’ only remaining unbeaten team twice to earn the title and secure to the East’s No. 1 seed to the NWAACCs.

If CBC ends up being that only remaining unbeaten team, however, only one game will be played to determine a champion and No. 1 seed, because both teams will have already earned berths in the NWAACC championships.

Keller admitted his sophomore-dominated team was disappointed after losing two at Wenatchee Valley last Wednesday, but added he was proud of the way it bounced back Saturday to sweep Treasure Valley.

“We’ve been pretty solid all year,” Keller said. “We went down to that last day needing to win at least one against Treasure Valley and really got after it offensively in that first game (a 5-3 victory).

“I was hoping we’d pull out a win, because these guys have battled through a lot and deserve to be in the playoffs.”

Cougs close against UCLA

Washington State, which took two out of three games from defending national champion and then-15th-ranked Oregon State in Corvallis, Ore., last weekend, will close out Pacific-10 Conference play at home against UCLA this weekend.

The Cougars (25-22 overall, 8-13 in the Pac-10) are in seventh place in conference standings after winning four of their last five Pac-10 games. UCLA (28-22, 12-6) is in second place, two games behind first-place Arizona State.

Following this weekend’s series against the Bruins, WSU will travel to Davis, Calif., to take on UC Davis in a May 25-27 three-game series that will serves as the Cougars’ season finale.

Zags get long break

The Gonzaga Bulldogs, following their 16-6 road loss to Washington on Tuesday night, will have nine days off before traveling to San Diego to take on the West Coast Conference regular-season champion and fifth-ranked Toreros in a best-of-3 series at Cunningham Stadium to determine the WCC’s automatic berth in the NCAA tournament.

GU (32/23) took two out of three games from Pepperdine in Malibu, Calif., last weekend to earn the school’s first berth in the WCC championship series since 2001, when it fell to regular-season champion Pepperdine in three games.

The Bulldogs finished conference play at 15-6, three games behind USD (18-3), which is 41-15 overall. The Zags took two out of three games from the Toreros at Washington Trust Field earlier this spring – something no other WCC team did.

Quick hits

Gonzaga’s Clayton Mortensen, after fanning 15 batters in a complete-game win over Pepperdine on Saturday, has moved into fourth place on the Bulldogs’ single-season strikeout list with 116. … The 12 complete games thrown by GU pitchers are the most since 1990 when the Zags registered 20 and are double that of any other West Coast Conference team this season.