The Elevator

Sat, Mar 29, 2008 (2 a.m.)

GOING UP

Double jeopardy: Foes don’t want to see Bishop Gorman junior Joey Rickard with a bat or a ball in his hand. The 6-1, 175-pound lefty has a valley-high six home runs and an amazing 1.116 slugging percentage. He’s hitting at a .535 clip. On the mound, he’s 3-0 with a 1.66 earned-run average. He has 21 strikeouts and would be in the top five in the valley in K’s if not for a one-inning outing in a blowout victory over Centennial.

The Bulldog wins: Former College of Southern Nevada baseballers Bryce Massanari, a catcher at Georgia, and Chase Leavitt, a right fielder at Arkansas, recently played against each other in a series in Fayetteville, Ark. The Dawgs took two of the three games, and Massanari went 5-for-11, with three doubles and two homers, and drove in six runs. Leavitt went 3-for-10 and scored three times.

The swattin’ Longhorn: Ashley Gayle blocked six shots Wednesday night for the West in the prestigious McDonald’s All-American game at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. A 6-foot-4 center out of Bishop Gorman, Gayle had four points, two rebounds and an assist in 18 minutes in an 80-64 victory over the East. Gayle will play at Texas, where she made her first official visit, next fall. Cal, Georgia, Kansas and Vanderbilt also wooed her.

The Rudder: The UNLV softball team (19-19-1) is spiraling, having lost seven of its past eight games, but sophomore shortstop Jaci Hull is thriving. A native of Scottsdale, Ariz., the 5-7 lefty has hit nine home runs and driven in 25 runs. She’s slugging .691 and is one of three Lady Rebels who have started all 39 games.

GOING DOWN

Or maybe not ...: Las Vegas resident Stevie Forbes, 31, has been battling since he weighed 2 pounds at birth, so maybe he has a fighting chance as he trains to face 35-year-old Oscar De La Hoya on May 3 in Los Angeles. That’s supposed to be a tune-up for De La Hoya’s showdown with Floyd Mayweather in September. Forbes (33-5, with nine KOs) has lost two of his past three bouts. The Golden Boy is 38-5, with 30 KOs, but is 2-3 in his past five matches.

Heck of a hall: Yet another round of Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame candidates has surfaced, and Jerry Tarkanian’s name is nowhere to be found. All The Shark did was go 509-105, for a .829 winning percentage, in 19 seasons at UNLV, with four Final Four appearances and that national championship in 1990. Tark turns 78 in August.