Box Score | Updated Season Stats
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Early miscues hurt the Lobos early, and some squandered chances and an unlucky break added up to a 9-5 loss to Nevada at Santa Ana Star Field in the Mountain West opener for both teams. The series continues Saturday with game two scheduled for 2 p.m.
The game is part of a big day around the Lobo athletic complex as the men’s tennis team has matches at 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., football hosts its Spring Showcase and the men’s basketball team celebrates Senior Night at 7 p.m. against Fresno State.
UNM ended up outhitting Nevada 9-8 on the evening, and the Lobos got several good pitching performances, but two early miscues led to five unearned runs in the first three innings. IN the top of the first, third baseman Hayden Schilling threw a bunt wide of first for an error, and that error eventually scored on a double by Grant Fennel for a 1-0 lead.
UNM answered quickly, loading the bases with no out, but in a microcosm of the game, Chris Dunn’s long towering fly ball to left hit the base of the wall, but since it looked like it might be caught, it went for a 400-foot two-run single, and UNM could not get any more runs across.
The other key misplay happened in the third. After Justin Slaten got a strikeout to start the frame, he fanned Marco Valenzuela, but the ball ricocheted off catcher Daniel Herrera’s glove for a passed ball. After a walk, Daniel Perry doubled in both runs to make it 3-2. Nevada eventually loaded the bases and Slaten made a nifty play on a swinging bunt to get a force out at home for the second out, which should have gotten him out of the inning.
Instead, Jashua Zamora came up and laced a bases-clearing double, making it 6-2.
UNM answered with two in the fourth when Chris Dunn singled in Schilling, who doubled for the second time in the game. Dunn then went to third on a single and later scored when second baseman Perry threw away an easy third out. That made it 6-4 but UNM never got any closer.
Drew Gillespie entered in the fourth after a pair of hit batters by Slaten and Gillespie was brilliant, retiring the first 10 men he faced, keeping UNM in the game.
The only hit he allowed turned out to be a big one, as with one on in the eighth, designated hitter Will Hatten, who started the game on the mound, tried to sacrifice but he pushed it past Gillespie for a single. Eventually with two down and the bases loaded, he hit the No. 9 hitter, pinch hitter Kaleb Foster, on a 2-2 pitch to make it 7-4. Malachi Emond relieved and allowed a shallow double up the middle to score two more.
UNM got one back in the eighth on a single and throwing error, allowing Phil Sikes to score. In the ninth down 9-5, UNM opened the inning with a Jeff Deimling walk and a rocket single by Dunn, bringing up second baseman Justin Watari. On a 1-1 pitch, Watari hit a rocket that was ticketed for center field, but in a case of poor luck, reliever Matt Young stuck his glove out and snagged the liner, doubling off Deimling. Two batters later pinch hitter Robby Campillo struck out to end the game.
The Lobos allowed just seven hits and just four earned runs, but Nevada utilized four hit batsmen and the two miscues for nine runs. UNM got a three-hit day from Dunn and a pair of hits apiece from Danny Collier and Schilling.
NOTES: Phil Gasser will throw for the Lobos on Saturday … UNM lost its DH when Watari, who pinch hit for Derek Marshall, entered the game in the field in the ninth inning … UNM needs to win the final two games to avoid losing a series to Nevada for the fourth straight time at Santa Ana Star Field.