Baseball: Nevada advances to play New Mexico for MW title after blowing out Air Force

Nevada cruised to the Mountain West tournament championship game with a 12-1 win over Air Force in seven innings Saturday at Santa Ana Star Field.

The third-seeded Wolf Pack will play No. 2 seed New Mexico at 5 p.m. and will have to secure a victory to force a sudden death game for the tournament title Sunday afternoon. UNM already beat Nevada 3-0 on Wednesday.

“It’s not about looking back it’s about learning from our mistakes good and bad. We need to focus our energy into the 5 o’clock game and that’s the most important thing.

It didn’t take long for the Wolf Pack to take control of the game. After going down by a run in the first inning, Nevada outscored Air Force 5-0 in the bottom of the first and second frames.

The Wolf Pack continued the onslaught with two runs in the fourth, three in the fifth and another two in the sixth.

Starter Ty Pennington threw a gem for Nevada by going 7 innings, allowing that lone run on six hits.

“He did a nice job. He made his first career start for us,” Nevada head coach T.J. Bruce said. “He struggled that first inning but then he settled down.”

Fifth-seeded Air Force used five pitchers on the day and each one allowed at least two runs.

Justin Bridgman went a perfect 4-for-4 with three RBIs and two runs. Jordan Pearce and Justin Hazard added three hits apiece as Nevada recorded 13 hits on the day.

Thomas Romero-Salas is the culture editor for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at cultre@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @ThomasRomeroS.