NW Briefs | Cougars baseball blanked by UCLA

Washington pitcher Jorden Merry suffered his first loss of the season as No. 3 Arizona State jumped out to a big early lead and cruised to a 13-3 victory in the first game of a three-game series Friday night at Packard Stadium in Tempe.

Merry, a junior from Pasco, fell to 8-1 with his roughest outing of the year. He pitched 2-2/3 innings, allowing Arizona State (42-9 overall, 13-6 Pac-10) to rack up nine runs on 10 hits. Washington (31-18, 10-9) fell into fourth place in the conference, a half game back of idle California.

ASU jumped out to a quick lead with four runs in the bottom of the first.

Washington scratched its first run in the seventh. Troy Scott missed a home run by a foot and settled for a long double. After a ground out, Brett Wilcox singled to drive in Scott.

In the ninth, the UW added two more runs on a two-out single from Michael Burgher.

More baseball

Tim Murphy pitched shutout ball for seven innings to lead UCLA to a 10-0 victory over Washington State at Jackie Robinson Stadium in Los Angeles.

Murphy (4-6) gave up two hits, walked three and struck out eight in handing the Cougars (28-23 overall, 6-13 Pac-10) their first shutout loss in 147 games.

The teams meet again at 1:30 p.m. today in a game televised on FSN.

• Gonzaga posted a 7-4 victory over Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles. Tyson Van Winkle went 3 for 5 with a double and one run scored for the Zags (29-22, 9-9 West Coast Conference). Bulldogs starter Matt Fields (8-3) didn't surrender a hit until the sixth inning.

Track and field

Washington State's Sara Trané defended her title as the women's steeplechase champion at the Pac-10 track and field championships in Tempe, Ariz., where the temperature on the track at the start of racing was measured at 104 degrees. Trané won the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 10 minutes, 17.80 seconds. The Cougars women are in fourth in the team standings; the men are in seventh.

• Eastern Washington's Bonnie Millard (discus), Erika Kirley-Price (hammer throw) and Aaron Mettler (javelin) won Big Sky Conference titles at the outdoor championships in Sacramento, Calif.

Millard's discus throw of 152-9 qualified her for the NCAA West Regionals. Kirley-Price also qualified for regionals with her hammer toss of 179-1. Mettler had a throw of 205-6 to win Eastern's sixth Big Sky men's javelin championship — EWU's fifth title in the past 10 years.

Golf

Western Washington's Breanna Carmichael (Bellarmine Prep) tied for 15th in medalist play and the Vikings placed sixth in the team standings at the NCAA Division II women's championships at the Memorial Park Golf Course in Houston. Western shot a final-round 32-over par 320 to finish the four-day, 72-hole tourney at 1,253.

Meanwhile, WWU's Sean Packer (Auburn Riverside) is tied for fourth in medalist play, two strokes off the lead, and the Vikings are ninth in the team standings heading into final-round play today at the men's championships.

Swimming

Tara Kirk of Bremerton, who competed for Stanford, finished eighth in the 200-meter breaststroke at the Toyota International Invitational Grand Prix in Santa Clara, Calif. She finished in 2:32.67. Sister Dana Kirk, also competing for Stanford, finished sixth in the 100 butterfly (1:00.14). Svetlana Karpeeva, competing for King Aquatic Club, finished fourth in the 200 breaststroke (2:29.86).

Rowing

The Malta Boat Club/Penn AC combination of Bjorn Larsen of Lake Stevens and Richard Montgomery of Batavia, Ill., finished third in the lightweight men's double sculls at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for rowing on Lake Mercer in West Windsor, N.J. The duo, who were eliminated from an Olympic rowing bid, finished the 2,000-meter course in 7:12.817.

Compiled from sports-information reports and other sources.