RENO, Nev. – After a 16-6 eight inning victory over San José State Friday evening, the Nevada baseball team clinched its third Mountain West Championship.
 
This marks the program's third MW regular season title and first since the 2018 season. With no conference tournament this year the Wolf Pack also earned the league's automatic bid to NCAA Regionals for the first time since 2000. This will be just the fifth time in program history that Nevada will send a team to NCAA Regionals in baseball.
 
Heading into the four-game series against the Spartans, the conference title was down to just Nevada and San Diego State. With the Aztecs losing earlier today to New Mexico, that opened the door for the Wolf Pack to win just one of the four games this weekend to clinch the championship. The Pack did not wait around for that to happen. It was all Nevada from the start, with a bit of a run by the Spartans in the middle of the game to put some pressure on the Pack, but the Silver & Blue closed out the game with even more offense to wrap up the contest in eight innings with the 10-run mercy rule in effect.
 
Nevada was hot out of the gate, scoring five runs in the first two innings. The Wolf Pack, which served as the visiting team in tonight's game, went up 2-0 in the first inning after Dario Gomez launched his sixth home run of the season to the opposite field. The ball was flying out of the yard for the Pack in Friday's game as the team totaled four long balls in eight innings. The second homer of the game came in the second inning when Joshua Zamora followed up a Landon Wallace RBI single with a two-run shot to right center that put Nevada ahead 5-0.
 
The contest began to get a little lopsided in the fourth when Dillan Shrum hit the first grand slam of his career out to left field, clearing the bases and putting the Pack ahead 9-1. Shrum wasn't done with the long ball yet as he connected on his second home run of the game, and 11^th of the season, in the sixth that gave Nevada a 10-2 advantage. It marked the second time this season that Shrum has gone yard twice in the same game.
 
This game wasn't without its challenges though as Nevada ran into a bit of trouble in the bottom of the sixth. The Spartans plated four runs in the frame to climb back into the contest and bring the deficit down to just four. Nevada proved why it is this year's conference champions though as Shane Gustafson shut down the SJSU offense the rest of the way, and the Wolf Pack offense took off to plate six more runs between the seventh and eighth inning to close the game out early.
 
Shrum had a monster game at the plate, and also recorded the final out of the game to seal the win for Nevada. Shrum was 5-for-5 in the contest with five RBI, four runs scored and two home runs. Tyler Bosetti, Joshua Zamora, Dario Gomez and Peter Mendazona also had big outings as they each recorded three hits. Jake Jackson earned his fifth win of the season after he threw 5.0 innings with three strikeouts. Gustafson entered the game in the sixth and shut down the SJSU offense, allowing just one hit in his 3.0 innings of relief work.
 
UP NEXT
Nevada and San José State will continue their four-game series tomorrow with a doubleheader starting at 1 p.m.
 
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