SAN FRANCISCO- Gonzaga Baseball (32-17, 19-5 WCC) officially secured the outright WCC Regular Season with a 12-5 win over San Francisco (22-26, 13-11 WCC) on Sunday.
The Zags had 15 hits today, with every single Bulldog batter in the starting lineup getting a hit. Gonzaga won the series by a combined score of 32-5, shutting out USF in the first two games while adding another twelve runs today. Gonzaga also outhit the Dons 41-10 across the three games of the series. The Zags have now won the past 13 straight meetings with San Francisco.
Landon Hood had a solid start today, picking up the win with 5.1 innings of work and giving up just two runs, striking out six batters. Mickey McClaskey also had a great relief appearance, getting a perfect five outs from five batters faced. McClaskey struck out four of the five batters that he faced tonight.
Gonzaga got on the board early, scoring three runs in the first inning. Ricky Sanchez opened the game with a leadoff walk that eventually led to a run, getting driven in on a hit by Maddox Haley. Haley was driven in alongside Mikey Bell on a double by Tommy Eisenstat, giving Gonzaga a quick three run lead in the first inning. GU is now 14-1 this season when they score a run in the first inning.
Gonzaga scored another two runs in the fourth inning, as Hudson Shupe scored on a ground ball and Sanchez drove in Jacob Wrubleski with a single. Sanchez and Wrubleski each had a game-high three hits. Gonzaga batted around in the eighth inning to score another six runs, with six hits in the inning combining to keep the Bulldogs moving around the basepaths. GU scored an extra run in the ninth inning as Kainoa Santiago was driven in on another double, this time hit by Landon White.
The Zags officially secured an outright win of the WCC regular season title with the win, maintaining the same four game lead over every other team in the conference with just three games now remaining in the season . Gonzaga's first game as the top seed in the WCC conference tournament will take place at 2 pm on May 21.
Gonzaga now has 19 conference wins, one win away from tying the program record for conference wins in a single season. The Zags will look to set yet another new school record when they take on Seattle for a three game series next weekend, with first pitch set for 6pm on Friday. Sunday's 1pm game against Seattle will be the last home WCC event hosted by Gonzaga Athletics ahead of a move to the PAC-12 next season.
