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Washington State coach Donnie Marbut should start clearing his schedule now. Head out on tour. Make some money on the talk circuit.
What makes Marbut more of an expert over another Pac-10 baseball coach?
His team scored five runs on one hit.
Let's see Arizona State do that.
Washington State got creative Wednesday night at Miller Field. The other Cougars scored five runs in the top of the first inning off one hit, and by the end of three innings had scored 10 times as Washington State took its second straight game from BYU by a score of 12-5.
The win gave Washington State a two-game sweep and helped the visiting Cougars improve to 25-20 on the year, while BYU dropped its third straight and fell to 19-30 on the season.
"The hardest thing is when you've got a rain delay and guys are unsure. I always try to preach this from my own personal experience that you've got to try and stay focused and anticipate that you're going to play even when it looks like you're going to play," Law said. "It was obvious to me that we had a couple of guys weren't ready to play and as a result we fell behind 5-0 on one hit."
After an hour rain delay to start the game, BYU could never recover from the first inning where Washington State had just one hit, but took advantage of BYU miscues to score big.
Let's see, three BYU errors, two wild pitches, two walks, one hit and voila, BYU was in a five-run hole. That may not have been so bad, but it got worse. Washington State scored three more runs in the second and two more in the third. After three innings Washington State had 10 runs on just five hits.
BYU didn't offer much resistance. The Cougars scored three times in the bottom of the first to try and keep the game close.
Sean McNaughton led off with a double and scored a run off a Washington State error. BYU added another run off a Jonathan Cluff ground out and a Thomas Bills RBI single.
BYU added another run the fourth, but then got shut down for the next five innings thank to reliever Connor Lambert, who gave up just two hits in 5 2/3 innings of work.
Kent Walton tried to ignite a comeback in the bottom of the eighth when he tripled with one out. He scored on a Thomas Bills ground ball, but BYU's inning ended when Chad Nacapoy grounded out.
McNaughton was the only BYU player to finish with two hits. He was 2-for-4 with an RBI. Washington State's Shea Vucinich went 3-for-4 and scored twice.
• Neil Warner can be reached at
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