The UNM baseball team finished off a three-game sweep of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi with a 22-6 victory Sunday afternoon at Lobo Field.
The Lobos were led by the hot hitting of senior shortstop Dusty Young who went 4-5 from the plate including three doubles, six RBIs and two runs scored. Young also extended his hitting streak to 30 games in the contest, good enough for second longest in school history.
“I just feel comfortable up at the plate, it just seems easy,” Young said. “I don’t really like to talk about [the hitting streak] because I’m kind of superstitious like that.”
The Islanders jumped out to an early 5-2 lead in the third inning, getting homeruns from left fielder Mike Schlekewy and first baseman Humberto Aguilar off of Lobo starter Darren Coltrinari (3-2). However, UNM had plenty in the tank to overcome the measly three-run deficit.
Down 6-5 in the bottom of the fifth, the Lobos’ bats would heat up and put UNM ahead for good. Designated hitter Joe Salas led off with a shot that cleared the right field fence and quickly tied the score 6-6.
“He threw me a first pitch fast ball in and they called it a ball,” Salas said. “I figured he was going to throw another fastball in and he did. I just turned on it.”
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
After a ground out by Josh Mader, Cory Lizarraga was hit by a pitch. After Jeff Grady walked, Mike Svetlic bunted for a base hit and took second on a bad throw while Grady advanced to third and Lizarraga scored for a 7-6 Lobo lead.
Jimmy Hamon came in to pitch and walked Matt Young to load the bases. Dusty Young promptly cam to the plate and doubled to left center, scoring two more for a 9-6 lead. Lizarraga did some more damage later in the inning, nailing a two-run jack for a 15-6 UNM advantage and a 10-run inning.
“A lot of kids had a lot of RBIs for us and hopefully that will continue,” head coach Rich Alday said.
The Lobos added seven more runs in the sixth inning to build an insurmountable 22-6 lead. With the thought of the Lobos’ explosive offense and a long trip home, the Islanders decided to call it quits after seven innings.
Left fielder Matt Young had a solid game going 3-3 and scoring four runs to go along with two RBIs. Lizarraga went 3-4 from the plate and missed hitting for the cycle by a triple. Lawson Burnat smoked a pinch hit three-run homer and Grady hit a two-run bomb.
“It felt good, I hit it well,” Grady said.
Senior pitcher Matt Bullen came in and pitched two solid innings of shutout ball.
“I knew that our offense could hit that guy,” Bullen said. “So I knew that all I had to do was come in, throw strikes and get outs.”
UNM took the first two games 16-2 and 17-11 respectively to improve to 22-10 overall.
Next the Lobos travel to Tempe, Ariz., to take on third-ranked Arizona State University. Next weekend the Lobos travel to UNLV with a chance to move into sole possession of first place in the Mountain West Conference.
“We got two out of three at Utah and hopefully we can do the same thing against UNLV,” Alday said.
