COLLEGE BASEBALL ROUNDUP : Arizona State Widens Gap in the Pacific 10 Conference

Arizona State put some distance between itself and the rest of the Pacific 10 Conference Southern Division over the weekend by winning two of three games against UCLA at Tempe, Ariz.

Arizona State, coming off a sweep over USC last weekend, improved to 38-15 overall and 15-9 in the conference. A Pac-10 championship would virtually guarantee that Arizona State would host a West regional for the NCAA playoffs, which will be played May 27-31 at eight sites.

UCLA, in second place entering the series against the Sun Devils, fell to third place at 11-10. Bruin first baseman Ryan McGuire hit his 17th homer during a 9-3 loss Saturday.

Arizona improved to 15-12 and moved into second place by winning two of three at Stanford (7-14).

USC improved to 14-13 by winning two of three games at California (10-14). Dan Hubbs earned his 16th save in Saturday’s 9-5 victory.

Pepperdine, the defending national champion, remained atop the West Coast Conference with a three-game sweep at San Francisco. Senior catcher Scott Vollmer hit two home runs Sunday as the Waves (31-12, 17-4) tied a school record with seven homers during a 12-2 victory.

Loyola Marymount lost two of three WCC games against Santa Clara and fell to 19-26 and 9-12 in the conference.

Cal State Northridge (26-15, 8-10) fell 4 1/2 games out of first place in the Western Athletic Conference West division by losing three games to division-leading Fresno State (31-13, 10-3).

Northridge struck out 30 times during the series.

Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Long Beach, the top teams in the Big West Conference, played nonconference games during the weekend.

Dante Powell hit two home runs and Mike Parisi improved his record to 8-2 as Fullerton defeated Chapman, 12-1. Fullerton improved to 29-12 overall with a 12-5 victory over Grand Canyon on Sunday.

Long Beach, which is only percentage points behind Fullerton in the Big West, improved to 28-16 by winning two of three against Cal State Sacramento. Junior right-hander Daniel Choi of Long Beach improved his record to 12-1 with a victory Saturday.

Rich Haar of UC Santa Barbara made a run for his third consecutive Big West Conference player of the week honor by hitting home runs during two Gaucho victories over Nevada Las Vegas. Haar, a senior third baseman, has 12 homers for Santa Barbara (19-22, 6-9).