Baseball aiming for season sweep of Portland

With the weather getting warmer and the regular college baseball season nearing its end, the UW baseball team will make its final trip to the University of Portland to wrap up a five-game, season long series.

The Huskies (28-16, 8-7 Pac-10), fresh off a sweep of conference rival USC, will look to do the same to the Pilots, who had previously lost earlier this year to the Dawgs, 6-5, 17-6 and 3-0. The fourth game of the series was canceled due to rain.

UW coach Ken Knutson seemed more than happy to get a sweep in Los Angeles before today’s game and another big series against Washington State next weekend.

“To get a sweep down there is tough,” he said. “We played really well.”

The Dawgs will look to keep their offense at its prime. This past weekend, juniors Kyle Conley and Brett Wilcox ignited the team with a combined 15 RBIs over three games.

UW piled on 26 runs over the series while limiting USC to 10, proving that the Huskies’ recent offensive woes are a thing of the past.

Now the Dawgs hope to take the series sweep against Portland, which they have had no problems with most of this season. In fact, the 17-6 victory over the Pilots earlier this year was part of an 11-game winning streak in which the Huskies swept three series at home.

Despite that, the Huskies most recently went through a 2-7 losing stretch that left the team looking for answers. They got the answer at USC in the form of offense.

As long as the offense continues to click and the starting pitching holds firm, the Huskies, at 8-7, could be a force to be reckoned with in the Pac-10, where the leading team, Arizona State, is only a few games away at 12-6.