ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – On March 19 this season, the University of New Mexico baseball team was hitting just .259 collectively after 18 games. Just one qualifier, freshman catcher Cory Voss (.333), was hitting better than .290.
In the 41 games after that date, however, the Lobos hit .332 as a team, and a whopping 10 players that had 63 or more at bats hit .312 or better. Senior Aaron Siple was the best of the bunch, hitting .396 (44-for-111) to close out his final collegiate season.
All told the Lobos hit .310 to rank seventh in the nation in batting average heading into the NCAA postseason this weekend. In head coach Ray Birmingham’s eight years at UNM, it was the seventh time the Lobos hit at least that well. Overall, UNM is hitting .322 under Birmingham’s guidance and has tallied over 5,500 hits.
| Category | NCAA Rank | Number |
|---|---|---|
| Doubles | 3rd | 141 |
| Walks | 5th | 298 |
| Hits | 6th | 635 |
| Batting | 7th | .310 |
| OBP | 7th | .404 |
| Triples | 10th | 24 |
| Runs | 11th | 416 |
| Scoring | 17th | 7.1 |
| Slugging | 17th | .456 |
This season the Lobos ranked third in the NCAA in doubles (141), fifth in walks (298), sixth in hits (635), seventh in on-base percentage (.404), 10th in triples (24), 11th in runs (416), 17th in scoring (7.1 runs per game) and 17th in slugging (.456).
Individually, the Lobos had just a few players rank near the national leaders in any given category, proving that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. Freshman Carl Stajduhar was 27th in the nation with 21 doubles, Voss ranked 47th in triples with five, Siple was 45th in OBP at .465, and sophomore Lane Milligan came in at 47th in RBIs per game with 1.00.
The Lobos were a young team as evidenced by the fact that 71.7 percent of their plate appearances were taken by either freshmen or sophomores. In fact, outside of Siple, who led the team in hitting at .354, the other six qualifiers were all underclassmen: sophomore Jack Zoellner (.352), sophomore Danny Collier (.346), Voss (.345), Stajduhar (.322), sophomore Chris DeVito (.314) and Milligan (.297). Meanwhile, redshirt freshman Reece Weber hit .375 in 80 at bats, and freshman Luis Gonzalez hit .299 and walked 10 more times than he struck out (23-13) in 127 at bats to give the Lobos two more quality young bats in their lineup.