Unlike their last game, the Lobos’ bats were more than present on Wednesday afternoon.
In a game that saw UNM hit the ball on 25 separate occasions, the Lobos took away their first victory in over a week at Santa Ana Star Field over Grand Canyon University, 22-3.
Lobo head coach Ray Birmingham said that his hitters were being passive in the previous game on Tuesday. But on Wednesday that wasn’t the case.
Every Lobo that took an at-bat was able to muster one hit or more, except for Justin Watari, who subbed in at second base in the latter innings.
But none were more impressive than Carl Stajduhar, who exploded at the plate. Stajduhar went 5-for-6, with two doubles, four runs and two RBI’s.
On top of that, four other Lobos were able to assemble three or more hits — Danny Collier (3), Jared Mang (3), Daniel Herrera (3) and Jack Zoellner (4).
As for who Birmingham thought had a great day, he credited Wednesday’s starting third baseman and right fielder.
“Carl had a great day,” Birmingham said. “Jared Mang had a great day.”
Stajduhar also felt that he performed up to par in his second game against GCU.
“[I] feel good,” Stajduhar said. “Teams have been kind of just throwing me a fastball right away because they know I’ve been in the habit of taking a pitch before I really start to swing, so today my emphasis was really trying to focus on being more aggressive. And just like we talked about, everybody was more aggressive today. We just wanted it more today than we did almost all weekend at Cal State Fullerton.”
The Lopes got out to an early lead in the first inning, scoring one run on an RBI double to quickly go up 1-0 on UNM.
However, the Lobos answered right back, scoring four runs in the bottom of the frame, with three of those coming off an Andre Pratt homer to left center. This put the Lobos up 4-1.
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Getting the lead early on, according to Stajduhar, was a major factor in how the Lobos would approach the rest of the game.
“That was huge for us,” Stajduhar said. “Two strike hits are a big emphasis. You can win or lose games with two out, two strike hits. And so to be able to push a couple across in that first inning was huge for us.”
From there, the Lobos never looked back.
UNM would tack on two runs in the bottom of the second inning to go up 6-1, though none of the Lobos’ innings were more impressive than the fourth, where they put up an astounding 10 runs in the frame, ultimately putting them up 16-2.
GCU would tack on one more run in the top of the sixth inning, but at that point things looked like they wouldn’t be favoring the Lopes.
UNM added an additional six runs in the bottom of the eighth inning, ultimately winning the game 22-3 at home.
GCU was able to muster seven hits total on the game, with four of those – as well as two runs – coming off starting pitcher Austin Isenhart. Isenhart (3-1, 6.00 ERA) ultimately secured the win, striking out two in five innings on the mound.
Up next for UNM is a three-game series at conference foe UNLV. The three games are on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The games will be broadcasted live on the Mountain West Network.
Matthew Narvaiz is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. He primarily covers women’s basketball and baseball. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @matt_narvaiz.
