March 25, 2001

Courtesy of Gonzaga Media Relations

SPOKANE, Wash. - After four hours of back-and-forth baseball Gonzaga and Santa Clara could not decide the second game of their West Coast Conference series as the two teams are deadlocked at 7-7 with the game to be resumed on Monday afternoon at August/A.R.T. Stadium.

Sunday's game was moved from its original 1:00 p.m. start time to a 2:15 p.m. start due to inclement weather in the Spokane area. The teams will take the field with Santa Clara batting in the top of the tenth inning with game time set for noon and the regularly scheduled Monday game to follow 30-minutes later.

Gonzaga jumped out to an early 7-0 lead and looked as if the Zags were going to give SCU its first WCC loss of the season. Kevin Richardson extended his hitting streak to 15 games with an RBI single up the middle that scored Kevin Cave. Gonzaga tacked on six more runs in the third as Jared Hertz, Nate Gold and Barry Matthews all delivered home runs that chased Broncos starting pitcher John Redmond from the game.

Santa Clara mounted a rally of its own scoring runs in the final five innings of the game. The Broncos scored three runs in the fifth as Matt Queen hit a two-run home run off Gonzaga starter Scott Stencil. SCU would add one run in each of the next three innings on solo home runs, two by Mike Theoharis and one by Pat Peavey. Santa Clara's final run would come against GU reliever Kyle Nearhood. After retiring the first two batters of the inning Nearhood surrendered a single to Jimmy Wallace and Clint Cleland drove home pinch-runner Mike Balestreri with a double to the right center gap.

Both teams had chances to blow open big innings during the game but both pitching staffs were able to work out of some tough situations. The Broncos twice worked out of bases loaded situations while Gonzaga turned a rare triple play to stop a big SCU inning. Gonzaga's final chance in the ninth was slammed shut by Bronco closer Anthony Rea who struck out Cave and forced Matthews to fly out to right with two Bulldogs on base.

Theoharis and John Hilvert have each collected three hits to currently lead the Broncos while Matthews, Richardson and Gebbers all have two hits for the Zags.