SAN FRANCISCO- Gonzaga Baseball (30-17, 17-5 WCC) shut out the San Francisco Dons (22-25, 13-9 WCC) on Friday to secure their 30th win of the season and move one step away from securing the WCC Regular Season Title.
The Zags are now just one win against second place San Francisco away from securing a share of the conference title and the number one seed, as they currently hold a four game lead over the closest remaining teams and hold the tiebreaker over both third places teams with just five games remaining in conference play.
The Gonzaga pitching staff stepped up to secure the win with a shutout outing, with Justin Feld tossing six scoreless innings in his start and Garrett Gores picking up the three inning save by finishing the game with another three scoreless frames. Feld and Gores allowed just four combined hits across the nine innings of work. This is the first shutout of the season by Gonzaga.
Feld kept the Dons hitless for the first three innings, only allowing a single in the fourth to break up the streak. San Francisco did not advance a runner past second base until the sixth inning, when two straight fielder's choices cut down the runners and kept the Dons off the board. USF did not advance a runner to second base again in the game after the sixth and only had a runner advance past first base twice in the entire game.
Gores was especially solid in his three inning save, allowing just one baserunner. Gores walked the first batter he faced and proceeded to sit down every remaining batter in order. His perfect nine batters after the initial walk included three strikeouts.
The Zags got their scoring done in three straight innings, putting runs up on in the board in the third through fifth innings. Tommy Eisenstat scored a run for the fourth straight game, advancing on a double by Bo Shinkle before being driven in on a groundball by Ricky Sanchez in the third.
Noah Meffert had a two out double to get on base while coming around to score in the fourth inning. After two more Zags got on base with two outs, Eisenstat then homered to drive in another three runs on a longball to deep right field. Back to back doubles by Sanchez and Mikey Bell in the fifth inning added another run to bring the final score to seven runs for GU. The Zags had five doubles in the game, with Sanchez contributing two of those doubles.
Gonzaga will look to secure the WCC title tomorrow when they take on San Francisco again at 1 pm.
