ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The University of New Mexico baseball team fell to Nevada 17-9 on Friday night at Santa Ana Star Field and is going to need help Saturday to claim the Mountain West title.
The Lobos (28-25-1 overall, 18-9-1 Mountain West) dropped out of first place for the first time this season and now need a San Diego State (20-9 Mountain West) loss to Fresno State at home combined with a win against Nevada on Saturday to claim the conference title and host the Mountain West Tournament.
“We’ve hit a tough time since Jack got hurt,” said UNM coach Ray Birmingham about the May 12 injury to senior first baseman and clean-up hitter Jack Zoellner (the Lobos are 0-5 since). “… I apologize to the Lobo fans, but I’ll get this fixed – I promise. The last two weekends haven’t gone well, but we got to keep fighting, keep plugging away and get this right.”
UNM fell behind the Wolf Pack (19-33, 13-15), who clinched the No. 4 and final spot into the conference tournament with the win, 6-0 before a three-run home run by Carl Stajduhar in the bottom of the third cut the Nevada lead in half.
But the Wolf Pack answered with three runs in the fourth and three more in the fifth to push its lead to 12-3.
The Lobos cut the lead to 12-5 in the bottom of the fifth on a Luis Gonzalez two-run home run and scored four more in the sixth to make it 12-9 with three innings still left.
However, Nevada put up two in the seventh and three more in the eighth to pull away for the 17-9 victory.
Stajduhar paced UNM at the plate, going 3-for-4 with a home run, double and three RBI. Gonzalez finished 2-for-5 with a home run, two RBI and two runs while Danny Collier, Brandon Langan and Robby Campillo had two hits apiece.
Carson Schneider picked up the loss, going 3.1 innings and giving up nine runs (eight earned) on eight hits with five strikeouts and two walks.
The Lobos will celebrate Senior Day at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Santa Ana Star Field with the series finale against the Wolf Pack starting at 1 p.m. Listen to the game with play-by-play from Robert Portnoy on ESPN Radio 101.7 The TEAM and on the 101.7 The TEAM “app.”