Continued today....not great. WSU reliever that had 6+ ERA vs terrible opponents combined for 7 IP on Friday & Sunday of DOMINANCE this weekend vs Beavs
Connor Wilford was the ace for Saddleback College last year, who lost to Palomar in the quarterfinals of the California Community College system. Wilford was named All-Orange Empire Conference First Team.
Wilford is Wazzu's best reliever. He actually started out as Wazzu's set-up guy.
After two great appearances, including the game one save, he was so good that he started the Monday game against UNLV down in San Diego.
And that was a disaster. Wilford had a decent first two innings, leading Wazzu to a 4-2 lead. He then could not get anyone out, starting the third with a 1B, 1B, BB, and BB. Shane Spencer, Wazzu's original fourth starter (and who has since taken over for Wilford) came on and gave up back-to-back singles to give Wilford six earned runs in two innings. Spencer hit the next batter before logging an out and gave up another single and a sac fly before settling down and ending the frame with a 9-4 UNLV lead. What is impressive is that the Cougars scored six runs over the next four innings to retake the lead and held onto win 10-9.
Wilford helped Caden Kaelber pitch his way out of a jam in the fifth and then continued into the eighth to pick up the win against Sothern Indiana.
Wilford is better than his ERA would indicate.
The Cougs are off to their best start since 1980.
Wazzu's head coach is Brian Green, who was an assistant under Pat Casey in 2001 after leading Chapman to the 2000 Division III World Series. He is generally held out to be a great hitting, infield, and recruiting coach. Also at Oregon State in 2001 was Gary Henderson, who coached at Oregon State from 1999-2002.
In 2002, Green joined Rich Hill's staff at San Diego. San Diego swept Oregon State and won the West Coast Conference Championship for the first time in school history (San Diego joined the West Coast Conference in baseball in 1985). San Diego beat New Mexico State in the Mesa Regional (Packard was under construction in 2002) but lost twice to host Arizona State. Green then went to Hawai'i in 2003. The Rainbow Warriors posted winning records in 2003 and 2004 after a 16-40 record in 2002. Hawai'i defeated Oregon State twice in the Islands in 2004.
When Savage took over at UCLA, Green was an assistant and stayed there for four years. UCLA lost the Fullerton Super Regional Championship Game by a run in 2007, which helped set up Oregon State's run at Omaha.
In 2009, Henderson took over as the head coach at Kentucky after John Cohen left Kentucky for Mississippi State. After Henderson was hired, he hired Green away from UCLA. Kentucky went to a Regional in 2012 (losing to Kent State, which beat Oregon in the Eugene Super Regional) and 2014 (losing to Louisville).
Green left in 2015 to become head coach at New Mexico State. The Aggies finished second, first, and second in the WAC from 2015-2017. However, they lost in the WAC Tournament each time. New Mexico State finally broke through in 2018 and won the WAC Tournament but went 0-2 in the Lubbock Regional. The Aggies won the regular season WAC Championship again in 2019 but lost in the Tournament. New Mexico State was able to continue on well for three years but is 0-13 this year.
Green quit after the 2019 season to take over at Wazzu. The Cougars have been in free fall ever since 2010, and Green seems to have immediately begun to build. 13-2, best record in Pullman since before I was born.
