SAN DIEGO - Nevada's 2022 campaign came to an end Saturday at the Mountain West Championship in San Diego, as the Wolf Pack fell, 15-6, to San José State.
Nevada (29-26) left 14 runners on base in the contest, including six over the first three innings. The missed opportunities gave San José State (30-28) an opening which it exploited by scoring four times in the third, and three more times in the fourth to take control, 8-1.
After Pack starter
Peyton Stumbo struck out the side in the top of the first, Nevada had a prime chance to take an early lead.
Ryan Jackson led off the first with a single, followed by Pat Caulfield's walk, and the pair moved up a bag on a deep fly ball to center from
Joshua Zamora. But the Pack would come away empty-handed, as
Matt Clayton fouled out behind the plate, and, after
Dario Gomez loaded the bases with a walk,
Landon Wallace grounded out to short.
The teams traded runs in the second, each scoring on a sacrifice fly. Nevada once again put its first two batters on, and had runners at second and third with one out after a sacrifice bunt, but got just one across as Jackson's one-out fly ball scored
Anthony Flores.
San José State broke things open in the third. Jack Colette hit a three-run homer to right as the Spartans put up four in the frame to take a 5-1 lead. An inning later, a Pack error gave the Spartans an extra out to work with, and San José State capitalized, getting two-out, RBI extra-base hits from Theo Hardy, Robert Hamchuk, and Colette over three-straight at-bats.
That spelled the end of the day for Stumbo, who fell to 5-2, giving up eight runs (five earned) on five hits while striking out seven.
Darren Jansen got the win in relief for the Spartans, his ninth of the season, going 2.2 innings after San José State starter Aaron Eden was lifted with two outs in the fourth.
San José State upped its lead to 12-2 in the sixth before Nevada showed signs of a rally, getting a run in the sixth, before and RBI double from Flores and an RBI single from
Tyler Bosetti pulled the Pack to within six at 12-6.
But the Spartans immediately quelled any hopes of a Pack comeback, scoring thrice in the top of the eighth to get the lead back to nine.
Jackson, Stinson, and Bosetti each finished the day with three hits for Nevada, which out-hit the Spartans 15-14. But San José State got three hits apiece from Hamchuk and Colette, and totaled nine extra-base hits on the day.
