Seniors have a Day for Lobos in win over UC Davis
The only three seniors on the University of New Mexico baseball team made the most of Saturday’s Senior Day.
Daniel Herrera hit his first home run of the season. Danny Collier went 2-for-3 as the designated hitter and James Harrington bridged the gap on the mound from starter Cody Dye to closer Christian Tripp as the Lobos (19-33-1) picked up an 11-7 nonconference win over UC Davis (16-32) at Santa Ana Star Field.
The rubber game in the threegame set is today at 1 p.m. (themwc.com, 101.7 FM). It’s also the season finale for the Lobos, who won’t make the four-team Mountain West Conference league tournament.
It was the only home run of the season and second of his UNM career for Herrera.
UCD took the lead in the top of the third inning, when the Lobos could have emerged unscathed. The only earned run in the inning reached to start the frame when Justin Watari battled the sun and lost, with the ball landing for an infield double. UNM followed with an error in the frame that allowed two more runs to score for a 3-1 Aggies lead.
Jeff Deimling’s three-run homer in the fourth inning gave UNM the lead for good at 4-3. The La Cueva alum had four of the Lobos’ 19 hits, and he had a four-hit game for the third time in his last five.
Cody Dye (5-6) got the win, allowing six runs (four earned) on 12 hits in 7⅔ innings.
■ In Edinburg, Texas, Elijah Alexander’s two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning gave host UT Rio Grande Valley a 5-4 victory over New Mexico State on Saturday in the regular-season baseball finale for both Western Athletic Conference schools.
The loss squared the Aggies’ league record (36-19, 17-7) in second place with Sacramento State (31-23, 17-7), which beat Utah Valley 8-2 to complete a three-game sweep. But the Aggies lose the tiebreaker and enter the postseason six-team tournament as the No. 3 seed. The Aggies will open by facing No. 6 CSU Bakersfield at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, Ariz., at 8 p.m. on Wednesday.
No. 4 Seattle and No. 5 Northern Colorado also open Wednesday. Regular-season champion Grand Canyon and Sacramento State earn byes.
SOFTBALL: In Tempe, Ariz., New Mexico State ended its season with a 9-0 NCAA Tournament loss to Long Beach State.
The Aggies, Western Athletic Conference regular-season champions the past four years and WAC tournament champions two years in a row, finished with a 29-24 record.
“I tip my hat to Long Beach State,” head coach Kathy Rodolph said. “They came out attacking at the beginning of the game and we had to find a way to regroup.”