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Two years ago it took the Washington State baseball team 43 games to reach their ninth win of the season. The Cougar baseball team took just 10 games to get their ninth win this season and have started out 9-2 so far as well as already surpassing the amount of series wins they had that year.
Over the weekend, the Cougars won two of three against Seattle U in the first home games of the young season. Originally scheduled to be played in Seattle, the games were moved to Pullman due to inclement weather in Seattle. The Cougar bats were hot over the weekend outscoring the Redhawks 22-14.
With Zane Mills on the mound on Friday, the Cougars would take the series opener 6-1 with help from Collin Montez and Jack Smith who each had three hits. Mills would sit down 7 while giving up 6 hits and one run for his third win of the season.
They would follow up that performance on Saturday with a 14-7 win with the majority of the runs coming in the final four innings after falling behind 5-3 in the fourth. Nine players would record at least one RBI and five players would have a multi-hit game to give the Cougs their sixth straight victory and their third series victory of the season.
The winning streak would come to an end on Sunday with the Redhawks taking the series finale 6-2. Kyle Manzardo, who went into the game with a 27-game hitting streak that spanned over three seasons, would go 0-4 as the Cougars struggled to get on base. He would however earn himself a walk in the bottom half of the third to keep his 37-game on base streak alive.
Over the course of the 11 games this season, the Cougars have outscored their opponents 105-48 with 97 of those runs coming off of RBI’s while giving up just 38. Mills leads the pitchers with three wins with a 0.42 ERA and 23 strikeouts through 21.1 innings pitched. Both Manzardo and Montez have a batting average over .400 and have combined for eight homeruns, 28 RBI’s, and 35 hits.
The Cougars will head to Seattle to begin a two-game series against the Redhawks beginning on Thursday. Friday’s game will be a double header with the second game coming against Washington that will kick off another two game series.
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