It was a colossal loss for Coppin State.
All day at Lobo Field, the Eagles endured apathetic pitching, nowhere-to-be-found defense, all while struggling to get runners on base.
Did we mention the bad pitching?
The UNM baseball team racked up 29 hits to Coppin State’s seven while running the Eagles out of Albuquerque, 29-3, on Sunday at Isotopes Park, part of a three-game sweep.
UNM head coach Ray Birmingham said his players had a team meeting on Sunday morning, and, as a result, put together an error-free performance against Coppin State.
“It was a big pow wow, actually, a couple of big pow wows,” Birmingham said. “I was smoking these guys for playing baseball the right way today. These guys can be as good as they want to be, I want them to be great and they know that. That was a great sign.”
Actually, Ray, it was a massive sign. Six Lobos had a multi-hit game for UNM.
Ryan Honeycutt had a career-high seven RBIs to go with four hits. He singled three times and hit a double in the eighth inning.
Justin Howard continued bludgeoning balls, but came up short of a handful of UNM batting records.
Howard had six hits in seven at-bats, while notching four RBIs and hitting a two-run home run in the bottom of the sixth that put UNM up 19-1.
“I was just trying to see the ball good,” Howard said. “You know, I have been seeing the ball pretty good lately, and I wanted to be aggressive. I got a pitch out over the plate, and I put a good swing on it.”
UNM got a man on base in every inning, only failing to score runs in the bottom of the third inning.
And, at that point, the Lobos were already up 8-0.
Howard said UNM was excited to play its first game of the season at Lobo Field, since they play a majority of home games at Isotopes Park.
“I mean, we know this place, we practice here, and we know the hops and we know what to expect,” he said. “The team gets kind of fired up to play here and this is because it’s kind of different from what we have been doing. But we take pride in this field here too and to put up 29 runs, that is something special.”
Mike Lachapelle, UNM’s starting pitcher, seated two batters through five innings of work. He gave up one run and three hits, but improved to 4-2 as a starter.
“Mike Lachapelle pitched well today despite who it was,” Birmingham said. “He threw his change up for strikes, and he had a couple of moments where he didn’t lock in, but that defines this team.”
*Baseball vs. San Francisco
Tuesday
6 p.m.
Isotopes Park*
