Box Score (Game 1)
Box Score (Game 2)

ELLENSBURG (Apr. 10) -- Senior Ricky McKinney (Aberdeen) combined for five hits in seven at-bats, and fellow senior Kevin Walkenhauer (Yakima/West Valley HS) allowed just one run over seven innings of work as the Central Washington University baseball team swept its non-league doubleheader from visiting California State University, East Bay, by scores of 5-4 and 7-1 on Saturday afternoon at the CWU Baseball Field.

The wins snapped a six-game losing streak for the Wildcats, who are now 8-23 overall. Cal State East Bay fell to 15-24-1 with Saturday's two losses.

In the opener, Walkenhauer drew a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the eighth inning to break a 4-4 tie and give the Wildcats and senior reliever Michael McCanna (Addy/Jenkins HS) the victory. That run, which was unearned, capped a two-run eighth in which junior Kelly Gau (Woodinville) had knotted the game with a RBI single.

Cal State East Bay led three times, including a 4-3 lead in the top of the eighth that they obtained after Nick McManus had scored on a balk.

Central took its first lead of the game at 2-1 in the fourth after a pair of two-out errors had extended the inning and allowed junior Chance Plutt (Dillon, Mont./Beaverhead County HS) to score. After the visiting Pioneers scored twice in the fifth to take a 3-2 advantage, senior Jake Hammons (Snohomish) scored Walkenhauer with a RBI single in the bottom of the inning to tie the game at 3-3, where the score remained until the eighth.

McCanna threw 1 2/3 innings of scoreless relief to earn the first win of his senior season (1-3), although he inherited the go-ahead run from junior starter Jake Millbauer (Kennewick/Kamiakin HS) had struck out five and allowed just one earned run in his 7 1/3 innings of work.

Offensively, the Wildcats outhit the Pioneers 9-8 and overcame four errors defensively. Four different CWU players -- McKinney, Hammons, Plutt, and Gau -- finished with two-hit outings, while Walkenhauer had the game's lone extra-base hit -- a fifth-inning double.

In game two, Walkenhauer had a shutout for 6 1/3 innings before CSU East Bay pieced together three hits and finally got on the scoreboard in the top of the seventh. The senior right-hander scattered eight singles and threw 103 pitches to earn his first pitching victory of the season in just his sixth appearance (second start).

Central rattled the bats for 11 hits in the seven-inning contest, including seven in the first two innings. The Wildcats scored once in the first and four more times in the second, with McKinney scoring in each of his first two plate appearances before finishing the game 3 for 3 with three runs scored. McKinney and Gau had run-scoring hits in the second, while the other runs in the inning scored on a fielder's choice and an error.

Freshman Sean Murphy (Bothell/Woodinville HS), who drove in Central's first run of the nightcap with a first-inning single, also plated the Wildcats' final two runs of the contest in the fourth inning with another run-scoring single.

McKinney, Murphy, senior Evan Churlin (Monroe), and redshirt freshman Marcus Evans (Kent/Kentlake HS) all had multiple-hit games in the game-two victory. Charlie Sharrer had three hits in as many at-bats for Cal State East Bay in game two.

The two teams will conclude their four-game non-conference series on Sunday morning beginning at 11 a.m. Central Washington will then hit the road for six straight games beginning with a four-game Great Northwest Athletic Conference series next weekend at Northwest Nazarene University.