Lobos Travel to New Mexico State Tuesday
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.— The Lobos are staying in New Mexico for the first time this season, set to travel to Las Cruces to face New Mexico State on Tuesday at 5 p.m. before opening Mountain West play at home March 14-16. Tuesday’s game will be the lone meeting between the two teams this season.
There will not be a stream for the game, but live stats will be available.
UNM enters the game against the Aggies 14-11-1 on the season and on a six-game win streak, while NMSU is also 14-11 and is coming off a 2-1 series win at Louisiana Tech.
PUT THE PRESSURE ON
The Lobos have scored in the first inning in nine games and scored in the second inning in eight games while not allowing a run in the first two innings in the first eight games and in 17 games overall.
UNM is outscoring opponents 23-2 in the second inning and 36-16 through the first two innings.
In addition, the Lobos are outscoring opponents 26-11 in the fifth and 16-7 in the sixth inning. On the season, UNM is outscoring opponents 127-92 (+35).
UNM is 6-1 when leading after the first, 9-1 after the second, 10-1 after the third, 11-2 when leading after the fourth, 9-2 after the fifth and 10-2 leading after the sixth.
UNM is 7-2 when scoring in the first inning and 11-2-1 when scoring first.
HEATING UP
The Lobos are riding a six-game winning streak leading into Tuesday and the start of MW play Friday, outscoring opponents 35-8 in the last six games.
In the last six games, UNM has had three shutouts (one for McKenna Guest, one for Natalie Fritz and a combined shutout by Lexi Atcitty and Caprice Barela), is hitting .282 (to .177 for opponents) with a .429 slugging percentage (to .204 for opponents) and a .369 on-base percentage (to .239 for opponents). During the stretch, UNM had 44 hits, including nine doubles, one triple and four home runs, with 33 RBI.
The pitching staff held opponents to a 0.52 ERA, allowing eight runs (three earned) on 26 hits and have 39 strikeouts to 11 walks. Guest carried a 0.39 ERA with 22 strikeouts to six walks, while Fritz posted a 0.82 ERA with 15 strikeouts to three walks. Both Fritz and Guest threw two complete games in the last six games.
At the plate, Jessica DeLeon has hit .538 over the last six games with two doubles, one home run, seven hits and six RBI as well as a .923 slugging percentage. Miracle McKenzie hit .412 with eight RBI on two home runs, one double and seven hits and a .824 slugging percentage.
IT’S ABOUT THE SACRIFICE
To date, the Lobos have a conference-best 23 sac bunts, led by a conference-high seven from DeNae Vasquez-Dickson, four from Hayden Luderer and Sydney Carithers and three from Emma Bramson. Carithers and Luderer’s four are tied for fourth in the MW.
Heading into Tuesday’s game, the Lobos are seventh in the NCAA in sac bunts.
In the opening weekend, seven of UNM’s runs scored were as a result of a sac bunt moving the runner over, with two runs in the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi game, two in the first Houston game and two against St. John’s.
In the Bulldog Invitational, four runs were set up by sac bunts, twice in two games. Against Northwestern State, the first run was set up by a Vasquez-Dickson sac bunt that moved Archuleta over, and in the fifth inning, Luderer laid down a sac bunt that moved Ava Castillo into scoring position with Castillo later coming around to end the game via run-rule. In the fifth inning in the first game against Alabama State, Vasquez-Dickson moved Archuleta over on a sac bunt with the Lobo later scoring from second. In the next inning, Bramson put down a sac bunt to move Georgia Heathcock over with Heathcock scoring from second on the next at-bat.
Against USD in the Purple Classic, Katherine Brunner laid down a bunt in the second inning to move runners over, leading to Grace Rana scoring for the 1-0 lead.
Dating back to 2006, the most sacrifice hits in a season was 51 done in 2006. The Lobos had 44 last season, the third most in that time span.
WALK IT OUT
The Lobos rank 46th in the NCAA and third in the Mountain West in walks with 85 walks, with 13 different players recording a walk and 12 with multiple walks.
UNM has four players with 10 or more walks, led by 15 from Jessica DeLeon, Ashley Archuleta at 12, Allie Williams with 11 and DeNae Vasquez-Dickson at 10.
Of the 85 walks, 24 have been on 3-0 counts, 31 on 3-1 counts and 30 have come on full counts.
UNM has started the game with a walk in seven games with Archuleta leading off with a walk in five games (three times on four pitches and two times at 3-2) and Vasquez-Dickson twice, once on four pitches and once with a full count.
The Lobos have drawn five or more walks in six games with a season-high seven in the Feb. 23 game against Texas Southern.
TWO OUTS, SO WHAT
Of UNM’s 127 runs, 59 (46.5%) have come with two outs in the inning.
Last weekend at the Purple Classic, the Lobos scored 13 runs with two outs, five in the first game against Saint Joseph’s, one against San Diego and seven in the second game against Saint Joseph’s. The four runs in the third inning against SJU were with two outs as was the run in the sixth. In the second game against the Hawks, two runs in the first, two runs in the second and the three runs in the fifth inning that ended the game all came with two outs.
At the Tarleton Invitational, the Lobos scored seven runs with two outs in the 13-run fifth inning against Texas Southern on Feb. 23, scored five runs with two outs in the first game against Texas Southern and five runs with two outs in the second game against UND.
In the first game against St. Thomas, six of UNM’s eight runs scored came with two outs with three in the second, one in the fourth and two in the sixth.
Five of UNM’s eight runs in the season opener came with two outs, with four of UNM’s runs in the first game against Houston coming with two outs. UNM scored three runs in the second game at Houston with two outs, two in the second game at HCU and one in the first game at HCU and one in the seventh inning in the second game at Texas State.
In the 1-0 win against Houston Christian, Miracle McKenzie’s hit that scored the only run of the game came with two outs in the inning.
With two outs and trailing 3-2 in Saturday’s game at Houston, Jessica DeLeon had her first clutch hit of the game with a single to the outfield to score DeNae Vasquez-Dickson and tie the game.
Ella Dawson leads the team with 11, two-out RBI with DeLeon second with nine and Allie Williams third with eight.
Freshmen have contributed to 36 of the team’s 53 two-out RBI (67.9%).
Of UNM’s 181 hits, 59 have come with two outs (32.6%), with Williams 14-31 (45.2%) with two outs and McKenzie 9-19 (47.4%).