The UNM baseball team’s bats got started early and didn’t stop until the ninth inning, but neither did BYU’s.
There was one major difference, though. UNM brought its runners home. The Lobos won the first of a three-game series 11-5 on Thursday at Isotopes Park — a little redemption from their 5-1 loss to the Cougars in the Mountain West Conference
Tournament last year.
“Of course we want to beat them, but we are more focused on winning (than getting redemption),” catcher Rafael Neda said. “We don’t care who is on the other side of the dugout. We just want to win.”
Both teams accumulated double-digit hits: UNM had 14 to BYU’s 11.
The bottom of the third saw a four-run inning as the Lobos pulled ahead 6-0. UNM already had a 2-0 cushion, after Jacob Nelson knocked in a two-run home run in the second.
“I knew it was out,” Nelson said. “I hit a lot of home runs in high school, and I hit that one pretty well.”
The Lobos picked apart BYU pitcher Matt Neil in the third inning. In the first pitch of his at-bat, Neda knocked a RBI-single. One pitch later, Cameron Smith drove in two runs. Finally, Max Willett hit the ball into left field, over the outfielder’s head, plating a run.
“Sometimes guys get too mental,” said head coach Ray Birmingham. “And our guys do the same thing. There is a lot of information going on in the dugout, which I am not used to. Guys are saying ‘I got his sign. I got his sign.’ I said just be aggressive. The guy is throwing strike one, and if you notice a lot of those hits were first-pitch hits.”
The hitting died down until the fifth inning, with BYU getting two of those runs back.
The Lobos, however, brought in three runs in the sixth to go up 11-3, all but ending the night for the Cougars.
BYU outfielder Sean McNaughton gave the Cougars some encouragement in the seventh inning, after sending a two-run homer heaven bound off relief pitcher Austin House, cutting the lead to 11-5. But by that time though, BYU was too out of it to make the Lobos sweat.
