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Greetings from Qatar, home of the REMF (Google it, unless a young person is nearby, as there is a swear word involved)
The Cougar Baseball team continued its peak-and-valley season Saturday by winning its fifth straight game. So far this season the Cougs have put together two winning streaks of five games (good), but have balanced that out with a five game losing streak early in the season, and a four game skid toward the end of March (not so good). As you could probably surmise, the result is an overall record of 14-13. However, the Cougs are 5-3 in the conference, good for fifth place. Hopefully they'll break out the brooms on Cal Sunday and keep moving up in the standings.
Over at spring football, the results have been opposed to the seemingly zero-sum game that baseball has been. As anyone who follows the Cougs could expect, the offense has been getting the better of the defense so far. That will happen when the players manning the secondary have about as much time on the field as I have dunking a basketball on a 10-foot rim. That seemed to change a bit Saturday, as the defense improved, and the offense was relegated to up-downs at the end of practice. Still, as we all know, a good performance by the defense often means a bad performance by the offense, and vice versa, because spring football.
On the recruiting front, Brett Rypien made a verbal commitment to Boise State Saturday, despite the fact that he has an uncle who logged a little time behind center at WSU. While I'm sure there was a good bit of "How could he not follow Mark to WSU? We don't need him anyway! He'll never amount to anything at Boise! Harumph!" sentiment out there, it's time to remind everyone once again that these are teenagers we're talking about. It would have been great to have Brett in the fold, but we should be ok without him. Besides, his real mistake was attending Shadle Park over Gonzaga Prep, am I right!?
Baseball
Cougars Win Fifth-Straight Game - Washington State University Official Athletic Site
Tanner Chleborad pitched 71/3 innings of one-run ball and Washington State defeated California 3-1 in Pac-12 Conference baseball, Saturday.
Football
WSU spring practice: Young defenders getting up to speed - Spokesman.com - April 5, 2014
Though the veteran offense still appears to be ahead of the youthful defense - except along the lines, where their situations are reversed - Saturday's practice was an indication that the gap was closing.
Spring Practice Report: Day 5 - SportsLink - Spokesman.com - April 5, 2014
After allowing themselves to be outperformed early in the spring, the Cougars defenders outmuscled their offensive counterparts and took care of business in the passing game to win the fifth day of spring practice at WSU.
5 Questions with Eric Russell - SportsLink - Spokesman.com - April 4, 2014
Eric Russell is Washington State's special teams coordinator and assistant head coach. After Thursday's practice he answered 5 questions about life as a WSU coach.
Reviewing the Pac-12 pro days - ESPN
Sleeper: K Andrew Furney. Furney showed a leg capable of hitting from beyond 60 yards and further established himself as a potential candidate for training camp invitations.
Track & Field
Regan Runs Into Record Book at Stanford Invite - Washington State University Official Athletic Site
Washington State's Abby Regan ran into the Cougar women's 800m records Saturday afternoon at the Stanford Invitational at Cobb Track and Angell Field.
Life
Curtis Malone: basketball mentor — and drug dealer - The Washington Post
Further evidence that as much as we think we know people, we really don't know them at all. Curtis Malone created a D.C. youth basketball empire. Turns out, he was a drug dealer, too.