by David J. Chavez
Daily Lobo
The UNM baseball team's pitchers picked a good time to shine.
Head coach Rich Alday said up until this weekend's three-game sweep of the Utah Valley State Wolverines, the Lobos were hitting fine - they just couldn't get it done on the mound.
"We're going to hit good this year, but our pitching hasn't been great early in the season until this weekend," Alday said after Sunday's 9-6 win. "We had some good pitching performances this weekend, so it was a situation where we performed well in everything."
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The series started Friday with every Lobo in the starting lineup getting a hit and UNM winning 9-3. On Saturday, Danny Ray Herrera pitched a complete game and didn't allow a run to score in a 3-0 victory.
Sunday's game featured more of an offensive show with the Lobos coming out of the dugout swinging to put two points on the board in the first inning. The Wolverines then scored four runs at the top of the second inning to take the lead.
Chris Carlson hit a two-run homer to even things out in the third. Zach Arnett hit an RBI in the fourth and the Lobos reclaimed the lead for good.
UNM's pitchers performed well in the middle of the game to keep the lead. In the bottom of the fifth inning, freshman Chace Lankford only had to pitch 11 times to get three outs. Quentin Andes took over for Lankford in the sixth and prevented Utah Valley State from scoring.
Damon Miller took the mound in the ninth for the save. He got a quick out and walked another batter. With one out and a runner on first, second baseman Jordan Pacheco made a diving catch. He threw the ball to Ryan Barba for an out and Barba threw it to Chris Carlson at first for a game-ending double play.
With the three wins, the Lobos improved their record to 7-4. It's UNM's best start since the 1993 season. It is also the team's second-best start since Alday took over as head coach 17 years ago. The Wolverines dropped to 2-8 on the season.
Despite the three straight wins, Arnett said the Lobos still have some things they need to work on if they want to improve.
"We played really well this weekend, and it's always good to sweep a team at the beginning of the season," Arnett said. "We also know that we made some mistakes throughout the course of the weekend that can't happen again if we want to continue to win."
UNM plays New Mexico State University in Las Cruces on Tuesday.
