Sports Roundup

While Westmont College took some California dreamin’ to Kentucky, and the conclave of cardinals in Rome picked a man who had touched “the hand of God,” there was lots of sports action on the home front, as always…

LUCK OF THE GAUCHOS: Black smoke belched out of the Notre Dame team’s bus, signifying the Fighting Irish lost their baseball game at UCSB’s Caesar Uyesaka Stadium last week. “I hope we murder them,” Gaucho super fan Phil Womble had said before the game. The last time UCSB faced the Irish on the diamond, it was in the 2001 NCAA Regionals on a miserable, cold day at South Bend, Indiana. Notre Dame eked out an 11-10 victory in 10 innings that sent the Gauchos home. This time, UCSB took a 5-0 lead in the fourth inning after Parker Miles ripped an RBI double into the left-field corner, and Tyler Kuresa swatted a triple into the right-field corner for two more runs. Starting pitcher Greg Mahle kept Irish bats in check before a committee of relievers took over. There was a crisis in the top of the seventh when Notre Dame, trailing 6-2, loaded the bases with one out. Pitcher Kenny Chapman induced a comebacker and got the force out at home, and the batter was called out when catcher Jackson Morrow’s throw to first hit him in the back — a tough call for the Irish. The final score was 7-2. Notre Dame still managed to win four of its seven games on the West Coast.

THE BLUES: In my first season of covering Santa Barbara sports almost 45 years ago, Dos Pueblos High’s football team had a shifty wingback named Kim Wilson — the same man who is the lead singer and blues harp virtuoso for The Fabulous Thunderbirds. Wilson was in top form during a concert at Campbell Hall last week. He forced painful moans and ecstatic choruses out of his instrument, as his legs pumped in rhythm — football moves while displaying the endurance of a marathon runner.