In the battle of the bats, the visitor took the victory Sunday at Lobo Field.
UNLV spoiled the final home game for the UNM baseball team and its seniors. The Runnin' Rebels took the weekend series, 2-1, and won 13-11 in extra innings on Sunday.
On Saturday, the Lobos out-hit the Runnin' Rebels 12-8, but UNM walked and plunked too many batsmen. That was the decider in the late innings. UNLV squeezed out an 8-6 win.
On Friday at Isotopes Park, freshman Rudy Jaramillo collected his first career win as a starter and became the first Lobo to pitch all nine innings this season. His complete game helped the Lobos take the only win of the series, 8-4.
"Lobo baseball right now has two options: They can lie down, which I am not going to do, or get back up and fight," head coach Ray Birmingham said. "You can't feel sorry for yourself now. We have some things we need to fix."
In Sunday's game, UNLV designated hitter Ryan Thornton jacked a two-run homer in the top of the 10th. This came after Jarred Frierson lined a ball off pitcher Cole White's right shoulder. The ball jumped in the air over the head of Daniel Gonzalez at shortstop and prevented a routine putout at first base.
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The never-say-die Lobos fought back from an 8-1 deficit in the third inning, and back-to-back homers cut the UNLV lead to 8-4.
In the bottom of the third, Max Willett singled to set up Ryan Honeycutt. Honeycutt pulled the Lobos within five runs, 8-3, with a two-run homer.
"I was just trying to get my team back in it," Honeycutt said. "(UNLV pitcher Jeff Urlaub) gave me a good pitch to hit. I put a good swing on it, and God did the rest, and it carried it out."
Adam Courcha followed with a solo home run to make it 8-4.
"If we could help out defensively with the bats, it's always going to help," Courcha said. "I just sort of ran into a pitch. (Urlaub) was trying to get on the mound after Ryan hit his home run, and I just got a good pitch to hit, and I hit it out of the yard."
There wasn't much good pitching at Lobo Field, though. The Lobos and Runnin' Rebels combined for 36 hits and 24 runs.
Courcha delivered on the defensive side of the ball, as well. In the top of the eighth inning, Frierson singled Courcha's way into left field. But Courcha rocketed the ball to home plate where catcher Rafael Neda tagged out J.J. Sferra and stopped UNLV from taking a 12-10 lead.
In the bottom of the ninth, Mike Brownstein drove in pinch-runner Cameron Monger with a one-out single to left. Later in the inning, Honeycutt had a chance to be the hero again and do it in crunch time.
With two outs and the bases loaded, Honeycutt hit a short blooper to left-center, but Jesse Wight robbed him. Wight's game-saving catch forced the game into extra innings.
"I put my best swing, and he put his best effort and made the play," Honeycutt said. "He just made a great play. What can you do about it?"
Birmingham said this series loss stings.
"It hurts big time," Birmingham said. "We have played better than this earlier and in the middle of the year. You know, we just got to keep plugging."
Baseball at Stanford
Friday
6:30 p.m.
Palo Alto, Calif.
