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San Diego State Eliminates New Mexico From MWC Baseball Tournament SDSU advances to face the University of Utah in an elimination game at 11 a.m. Friday morning.
May 26, 2005 SALT LAKE CITY, Utah - The No. 3-seeded San Diego State University baseball team stayed alive in the Mountain West Conference Baseball Championship Thursday night at Franklin Covey Field. The Aztecs led New Mexico 5-0 early and then held on for a 7-5 victory in the losers' bracket contest. SDSU's Curt Mendoza provided much of the San Diego State (25-34) offense in the contest, with a pair of early home runs. However, a James Guerrero triple, followed by a Jake McLintock single in the bottom of the seventh inning, proved to be the difference. New Mexico (26-32) had tied the game 5-5 in the top of the seventh. But the Aztecs got Guerrero's triple off the wall down the right-field line with one out to spark a two-run rally. McLintock pushed Guerrero in with the go-ahead run, slapping a single through the right side of a drawn-in infield. McLintock later scored to make it 7-5 when Tim O'Brien singled to left field.
Mendoza nearly single-handedly built a 5-0 lead for SDSU early. He hit a two-run, opposite-field home run in the second inning to make it 2-0. Mendoza then added a monster blast to left-center in the third, plating McLintock and Lance Zawadzki in front of him. New Mexico tallied a single run in the fourth to make it 5-1. The Lobos added two more in the sixth on Chris Carlson's two-run double to right-center, cutting the deficit to 5-3. New Mexico got all the way back to 5-5 in the top of the seventh when Jordan Pacheco drove a pair of runs home with a double off the wall in the right-field corner. Lobo starter Danny Ray Herrera suffered the loss, falling to 8-5. He tossed 117 pitches in 7 1/3 innings. Herrera walked three and struck out five. SDSU advances to face the University of Utah in an elimination game at 11 a.m. Friday morning. Game No. 6 Notes San Diego State's Quintin Berry had his conference-best 14 game hitting streak snapped after going 0-for-4 vs. the Lobos. New Mexico has now lost 10 of its last 12 MWC Tournament games dating back to 2001 with tonight's loss to SDSU. The Lobos are now 0-4 vs. the Aztecs in MWC Tournament play. The No. 4 seed is now 1-9 in its last 10 MWC Tournament games, while the No. 3 seed has now won six of its last seven in MWC Tournament play. Game No. 6 Quotes San Diego State Head Coach Tony Gwynn: "Bruce (Billings) battled tonight, but two or three runs were unearned. He did what he needed to do which is why he was conference pitcher of the year." "We need to put up runs early tomorrow and just go out and win. Pitching is going to be critical, but I think we are going to be ready."
New Mexico Head Coach Rich Alday:
"We battled back. Our kids did a great job and I'm proud of each of them. Danny Ray (Herrera) pitched really well tonight and I couldn't have asked for a better performance."
"We didn't play well throughout the entire game like we needed to. We are young and we are going to learn from this. We'll come back next year looking for the win."
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