Eventually the gloomy weather in Albuquerque cleared, but the day worsened for the UNM baseball team.
Up 7-3 heading into the seventh inning of Sunday’s four-game series finale, UNM squandered the lead to Creighton and fell 8-7 in extra innings at Isotopes Park.
Creighton second baseman Alex Staehely singled to score Nick Judkins for the go-ahead run in the top of the eleventh inning. Judkins reached third after an error from UNM shortstop Alex Allbritton the play before.
Head coach Ray Birmingham said there are no excuses for the Lobos’ 0-8 start to the season.
“(We’re) a tentative and young ball club, but we’re playing a really good ball club,” Birmingham said. “We should have three out of four games against them, but we didn’t because we’re trying not to mess up instead of winning ball games. Guys are pressing and do silly stuff on their own.”
The pressing and silliness didn’t stop throughout the four-game series.
The Lobos lost to the Blue Jays on Friday 4-3. Catcher Mitchell Garver was the Lobos’ only offense, driving in all three runs. UNM and Creighton dueled in a double-header Saturday, but dropped both contests.
In game two, the Lobos led 4-0 after three innings. But the Blue Jays rallied thanks to a three-run, seventh inning home run by Anthony Bemboom. The Blue Jays won 10-6.
On Sunday, freshman pitcher Jake McCasland worked six innings and gave up three runs on seven hits.
Bobby Mares, who pitched the game’s late innings, said the team’s youth isn’t an excuse.
“Being a young club isn’t going to cut it anymore,” he said.
Having a 7-3 cushion, reliever Alexis Garza replaced McCasland in the seventh inning.
After some poor defense and pitching, Garza found himself with the bases loaded.
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Creighton’s Chance Ross scored from second after an error by second baseman Kyle Stiner. Later in the inning, with the bases loaded, Judkins was walked and Jimmy Swift scored to cut the Lobos’ lead to 7-5.
Garza didn’t get any outs, gave up the tying run and was replaced by Mares.
Mares pitched five innings, giving up only two hits and one unearned run, and he gave up the game-winning run in the 11th.
Mares said the team played well in spurts during the course of the eight-game losing streak.
“And then we take an inning off or a play off when we have runners on base or the bases loaded,” he said. “I mean, we’ve been playing really good, and we just seem to have that one bad inning. … It’s just that one inning a game that is really killing us right now.”
The Lobos opened up the game with six runs in the first two innings off Creighton starter Erik Mattingly.
Mattingly pitched 1.1 innings and faced 11 Lobo batters. He gave up six runs on seven hits including four runs in the second.
The big hit of the second came from Quay Grant. Grant singled up the middle and scored Kyle Stiner and Sam Wilson.
Birmingham said he hasn’t seen baseball played by a Lobo team like this in the four years he has been the head coach at UNM.
“Little guys are trying too hard,” he said. “Young kids are trying not to lose rather than win. Now I got guys playing like high-schoolers.”
