Busy weekend

Baseball starts up this weekend.

Oregon State sports will be in full swing (pun intended) this weekend. Baseball finally gets going with a series at UC Santa Barbara, and the hot-hitting softball team heads to San Diego for a tournament.

Former OSU baseball pitcher Andrew Checketts is the new Gauchos coach. He had an 11-1 record and 3.77 ERA in 13 starts, 73 strikeouts in 86 innings, earned Pac-10 North Player of the Year, Collegiate Baseball Magazine second-team all-American, National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association second-team all-American and All-West Region second-team as a senior in 1998.

He was also named Pac-10 North All-Conference in 1997 and 1998, finishing his collegiate career with a 30-12 record. Checketts graduated from OSU with a degree in business administration, finance. He was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the 21st round of the 1998 MLB draft.

The gymnastics team will in action at 7 p.m. tonight in Gill Coliseum. It’s the annual Pink Out, so get there early. It’s going to be packed.

If you missed my Thursday story on junior Kelsi Blalock, check it out here. She’s in the middle of a breakout season.

Here’s my gymnastics notebook in today’s GT. It leads off with what Leslie Mak is accomplishing this season. She is going to end up as one of the best gymnasts in OSU history.

And of course there’s all the basketball with the men at California and the women at home against Cal on Saturday. We’ll see if either of the teams can recover from their defeats against Stanford.