May 24, 2007
LAS VEGAS – The Lobo baseball team lived to see another day with a 4-1 win over San Diego State at the Mountain West Conference Championship on the UNLV campus at Earl E. Wilson Stadium. Only one of New Mexico’s four runs were earned as it picked up its second straight win over the Aztecs after losing its first four contests to them in MWC tournament play.
Jacob Norton tossed New Mexico’s second complete game of the tournament. Norton allowed just one run on five hits and three walks with six strikeouts.
UNM hitters didn’t wait long to jump on SDSU starter Lance Sewell, tapping him for two doubles in the first and a leadoff single from Ian Hollick in the second. With Hollick on first, Adam Courcha forced Sewell to try and throw strikes, which he couldn’t do. Courcha walked, putting Hollick in scoring position.
Jay Russell, the Lobos expert in sacrifice bunts, laid down a perfect one, putting runners at second and third with one out. With two outs, Scott Gracey hit a grounder to Nick Romero at third, who rushed his throw, sailing it past Joe Spiers at first. The errant throw across the diamond allowed Hollick and Courcha to score, giving the Lobos a 2-0 lead.
San Diego State hung around, getting two hits and a walk off Norton in the fourth. Nick Romero singled and scored on a single from Brian Lucas, cutting the UNM lead to 2-1.
Romero erased the run he scored, giving UNM a run in the top of the fifth, committing two errors on the same play. He couldn’t cleanly field a grounder from Hollick and then unwisely threw to first, getting tagged with another error as the throw was well off the mark. The errant throw allowed Matt Hibbitts to score from third, giving UNM a 3-1 lead.
Russell and Gracey teamed in the sixth to give the Lobos an insurance run. Russell led off the inning getting hit by a pitch. After taking second on a sac bunt, Russell scored on a Gracey single.
New Mexico out-hit San Diego State, led by Daniel Stovall who went 3-for-5. Hollick was the only other Lobo with multiple hits, going 2-for-4 with a run scored. Five different Aztecs posted one hit.
The Lobos (28-29) are back in action tomorrow at 11 a.m. PT/noon MT, taking on sixth-seeded UNLV, who fell to top-seeded TCU earlier this evening. CSTV’s GameTracker and live audio are available on www.themwc.com while the mtn. will televise the game live.