A change of scenery might be exactly what New Mexico needs after being swept at home by Fresno State last week.
The Lobos will head to Fort Collins, Colorado this weekend to take on the Colorado State Rams.
Colorado State and New Mexico share identical season records, both teams marked at 18-17. Colorado State holds a better Mountain West record at 4-5, compared to UNM’s 3-6.
“They’ve always been a really good hitting team, their line-up is looking really well," head coach Erica Beach said.
Haley Hutton leads all Colorado State players in batting average hitting .423, and is the team’s leader in hits in the season with 47 and leads the squad with 36 runs. She also leads the Rams in stolen bases with 14.
Kristina Akiona is tied for the team lead in homeruns with 4, and leads the team in RBIs with 24.
Colorado State’s best pitcher is Holly Reinke, who holds a 3.30 ERA with an 11-7 record. She’s thrown 15 complete games this season and has 80 strikeouts on the year.
The Rams are 6-5 at home, but just 2-4 at home during conference play, losing their last two home stands to San Jose State and Boise State. CSU has given up an average of 12 runs at home in league play.
However, Colorado State took two out of three on the road this past weekend at San Diego State.
The Lobos were swept by Fresno State on Sunday and have dropped five of their last six games.
UNM allowed six unanswered runs on Friday night, after being down by a run after two innings. On Saturday, the Lobos held a one run lead heading into the sixth inning. Poor pitching and a few bad bounces later, New Mexico gave up five runs in the last two innings blowing their lead late.
Mistakes on defense, lack of execution at the plate and shaky pitching plagued UNM against No. 25 Fresno State.
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“Our pitchers have to recover really quickly. We are going to go where our pitchers takes us,” Beach said. “If they have a great weekend, we will have a great weekend,” putting her faith in the team to make the turnaround and to get back to their winning ways on the road this weekend.
UNM will look to bounce back on Friday afternoon at 4 p.m., game one of the three-game road trip.
Wally Gallart is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @wallyagallart.
