ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The University of New Mexico baseball team lost its fifth straight game Saturday by a score of 8-3 to the visiting Nevada Wolf Pack. Christian Stolo tossed a complete game for the Wolf Pack, throwing a whopping 134 pitches in the process.
“He pitched his butt off,” UNM head coach Ray Birmingham said about Stolo. “I tip my hat to him. That was a great pitching performance.”
After Nevada (37-11, 20-6) put up three in the top of the first, the Lobos (23-21, 13-10) answered with one in the home half on a deep sacrifice fly by Chris DeVito to score Sam Haggerty.
Then Mother Nature struck. A storm cell passed over Lobo Field causing a one-hour, 18-minute weather delay. Once play resumed, the Lobo bats went silent. They didn’t record another hit until Jack Zoellner’s one-out single in the seventh. By that point they were trailing 7-1 with Nevada firmly in control.
UNM added another in the eighth on back-to-back two-out doubles by Haggerty and Cory Voss. Voss, who leads the Mountain West in batting in conference play with a .413 average, had two of UNM’s five hits and also walked in a 2-for-3 performance. Jack Zoellner also had two hits for the Lobos.
Carl Stajduhar went 0-for-2 with a walk and a hit by pitch to see his 14-game hitting streak come to an end. He eventually came around to score the final run, though, after his four-pitch walk leading off the ninth.
The Lobos will try to salvage the final game of the series Sunday at 1 p.m. Freshman Luis Gonzalez will get the start for UNM. ESPN Radio 101.7 The TEAM will carry the game, and uPUBLICtv will produce the game and broadcast it in Albuquerque on Comcast channel 26.
Notes: The announced attendance was 910 … Zoellner was flawless in 13 chances at first and has yet to commit an error this season … he has 312 putouts and 28 assists.