Wildcats hold off Lobos 11-8
TUCSON, Ariz. – Sixteen of the 19 runs scored on Tuesday night at Hi Corbett Field came across the plate in the first three innings, as host Arizona held on for an 11-8 win over the New Mexico baseball team in the mid-week affair.
After the game got off to a wild start, with Arizona leading 9-7 after the third, both offenses quieted down and combined to score just three runs the rest of the game. The Lobos got as close as down 9-8 after the top of the fifth inning, but Arizona’s bullpen kept the nation’s third-leading offense off the scoreboard across the final four innings.
New Mexico moved to 19-17 with the defeat, while Arizona won its sixth game in-a-row to improve to 23-15 on the season.
Jake Holland homered and led the Lobo offense with three RBIs, and Braydon Runion drove in two runs including his sixth home run of the season. Eight of the Lobos’ nine starters had at least one hit in the game, as UNM battled back from an eight-run deficit early to keep the game interesting to the end.
UNM’s relief corps of Adolfo Iturralde, Arthur Steinkamp, Justin Still, Wil Bannister, and Brian McBroom combined to allow just three runs over the final 7 2/3 innings of the game, and the Lobo pitching staff issued just one walk while striking out four hitters in the game.
Arizona’s bullpen put up a similarly impressive line, with its final six pitchers combining to allow just two runs over the last 6 1/3 innings of the game. The Wildcats struck out 13 Lobos while issuing just one free pass on the evening. Six different Arizona players had two hits and four drove in a pair of runs in the balanced offensive effort.
Arizona got on the board in the bottom of the first, when Chase Davis delivered an RBI-single into left center that brought home Mac Bingham. Kiko Romero followed with an RBI-triple, and a sacrifice fly off the bat of Emilio Corona capped the scoring burst to make it a 3-0 ballgame.
The Lobos got a run back in the top of the second on Holland’s 11th home run, a towering blast that carried above the 410-foot marker in left-center field.
Tony Bullard doubled off the wall in left-center in the bottom of the second, igniting a six-run inning that gave the Wildcats a hefty 9-1 lead. Nik McClaughry, Davis, and Garen Caulfield had RBI-singles in the inning, Corona added an RBI-triple, and an error by the Lobos aided in the big frame.
New Mexico responded immediately, getting right back into the game with a six-run top of the third. Two-out RBI-hits by Runion, Reed Spenrath, Holland, and Sean Stephens narrowed the deficit to just 9-7. Iturralde followed with a shutdown inning, collecting his first strikeout of the day en route to a zero in the third.
Things settled down through the middle innings, as the Wildcats went scoreless in the third through fifth innings, while the Lobos managed just one run in that span on a solo home run by Runion in the top of the fifth that cut the spread to just 9-8.
Arizona got one run on a McClaughry ground out on the sixth, and struck again in the eighth on an RBI-single off the bat of Bullard to make the score 11-8. That proved to be enough to secure the win, as Chris Barraza worked around a double by Lenny Junior Ashby in the ninth to secure his first save of the season.
Sean Stephens had a season-high three hits while making five catches in center field, while Devon Dixon made seven defensive plays at second base. The Lobos stranded six runners on base in the game, compared to four left on by the Wildcats.
LOBO NOTES: New Mexico is now 36-165 all-time against Arizona and is 16-110 in games played in Tucson…Runion’s home run was the 35th of his collegiate career and his 19th in a Lobo uniform…Holland’s home run was the 18th of his collegiate career…Ashby’s double was the 54th of his collegiate career…Ashby extended his hitting streak to 13 games and Spenrath’s reached 10…Spenrath upped his Mountain West-leading RBI total to 47 on the season.
COMING UP: The Lobos host Fresno State in a big Mountain West series this weekend at Santa Ana Star Field. The three-game set kicks off on Friday night with a 6 p.m. first pitch.