Baseball: Nevada holds on to beat SDSU

Despite a late rally from sixth-seeded San Diego State, No. 3 Nevada held on to a 5-3 win Friday at Santa Ana Star Field to advance in the Mountain West tournament.

With the win, the Wolf Pack will play No. 1 seed Fresno State at 3 p.m.

SDSU was in position to pull off a massive comeback in the ninth inning. Trailing 5-2, the Aztecs began the inning with back-to-back singles to put the tying run at the plate.

The next two Aztec batters then grounded out, but on the second out, Nevada pitcher Mark Nowaczewski misfired on a throw to third base. That allowed an SDSU runner to score and cut the lead to two runs.

Nowaczewski then walked the next batter but finished the game by getting Aztec catcher C.J. Saylor to groundout.

Nevada pitcher Trenton Brooks had an impressive outing by going 7 2/3 innings, allowing just two earned runs on four hits.

SDSU (21-38) used five different pitchers in the loss. Starter Mike Diamond gave up three earned runs in just four innings.

The Wolf Pack opened up the game with two runs in the first inning thanks to a two-run double from Brooks. Nevada tacked on a run in the fourth, six and seventh innings and had a 5-0 lead heading into the eighth.

The Aztecs finally broke through in the eighth when second baseman Justin Wylie hit an RBI double to cut Nevada’s lead to 5-2.  

Nevada (35-22) also snapped SDSU’s 14-game elimination game winning streak. The Aztecs had won the previous three Mountain West tournaments.

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