NW Briefs: UW, WSU rowers invited to nationals

Washington and Washington State received invitations Tuesday to be among the 12 rowing teams competing for the NCAA title May 26-28 on Mercer Lake in West Windsor, N.J.

The invitation keeps alive the Huskies' streak of being only one of three schools (with Princeton and Brown) to receive invitations to all 10 championships since the NCAA began sponsoring women's rowing in 1997.

The Cougars, who beat the Huskies in a varsity race on Lake Washington this spring, are going to nationals for the third time in four years.

The 12 schools competing for the overall team title will have entries in the varsity eight, second varsity eight and varsity four-with-coxswain events.

UW coach Eleanor McElvaine said the moments on the NCAA conference call before the announcement of the invitations were nerve-racking.

"I was sitting on the conference-call line and they were about five minutes late," she said. "It was an interesting five minutes trying to keep my hands from shaking."

The complete field of schools in the team-championship competition is Brown, Pac-10 champion California, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Princeton, Stanford, Tennessee, Washington, WSU, Wisconsin and Yale.

Other rowing

Western Washington's women's rowing team received a bid to the NCAA II National Championships as the West Region champion. The Vikings took top honors last season.

Baseball

Catcher Matt Lane broke a 4-4 tie with a sixth-inning, leadoff homer and freshman Adrian Gomez threw seven innings of shutout relief as the Washington (33-23) baseball team snapped a four-game losing streak with a 6-4 win over Portland (15-34) in Portland.

Center fielder Michael Burgher had three hits, including an RBI triple for the Huskies, and Curt Rindal hit his 10th homer of the year.

• Jay Miller became only the second player in Cougars history to collect 300 hits thanks to a ninth-inning double as Washington State (34-18) defeated Gonzaga (28-24), 11-5, in a nonconference game in Spokane.

Miller's double was his 26th this season, and he is now just four hits shy of Mike Kinkade's school record of 304. Miller, who graduated from Newport, also trails Kinkade by three on the career doubles list with 72.

Notes

• Nevada will play a men's basketball game against Gonzaga on Dec. 30 at KeyArena in Seattle.

• Seattle Sounders defender Ben Somoza was selected as a member of the USL First Division Team of the Week for his performance against the Minnesota Thunder last week.

• Senior discus thrower Jessica Telleria and freshman high jumper Clara Cook will compete for Western Washington at the NCAA Division II National Track and Field Championships.

• Seattle University sophomores Erin Martin and Jane Purdy and senior Marjalena Santos were selected to the Louisville Slugger/National Fastpitch Coaches Association Division II West Region Team.

• Western Washington sophomore Sean Packer was tied for 50th in medalist play after shooting 5-over 75 in the opening round of the NCAA II Men's Golf National Championship at The Resort at Glade Springs in Daniels, W.Va.

Compiled from sports-information reports and other sources.