2026 Credit Union 1 Mountain West Championship
(4) Nevada vs. (5) New Mexico
Thursday, May 21, 2026 - 6:05 p.m.
Mesa, Arizona - Sloan Park

RENO, Nev. - It is tournament time as fourth-seeded Nevada (24-26) takes on fifth-seeded New Mexico in a loser-goes-home play-in game Thursday at the Credit Union 1 2026 Mountain West Championship.

First pitch from Sloan Park in Mesa, Arizona, is set for 6:05 p.m. The winner of Thursday night's game advances to the four-team, double-elimination portion of the event and will face No. 1 San Diego State Friday at 1:05 p.m.

All games at the CU1 Mountain West Championship will be streamed on the Mountain West Network and the MW App, with John Ramey and Paul Loeffler on the call, and on the radio on KPLY 630 AM in Northern Nevada and online on The Varsity Network app with Zak Basch calling the action.

ABOUT NEW MEXICO
New Mexico (28-22-1) enters Thursday's play-in contest on a bit of a slide itself, having lost seven of its last 11. Like the Wolf Pack, the Lobos ended their Mountain West season dropping two of three to GCU, as New Mexico finished its conference slate the weekend of May 8-10.

Khalil Walker leads the Lobo offense, batting .359 with 61 hits including three homers and 37 RBIs, followed closely by Brodey Williams at .342 with three homers and 30 RBIs. The trio of Luke Mansy, Lenny Ashby, and Karsen Waslefsky share the team lead in home runs with six apiece.

On the hill, Cristian Mogen is likely to get the ball Thursday. Mogen is 1-2 with a 6.54 ERA and 59 strikeouts over 63.1 innings this season and handled Friday starts for the Lobos most recently.

AGAINST NEW MEXICO
Nevada leads the all-time series with New Mexico, 38-32, and took two of three in Albuquerque from April 17-19 this season.

The Wolf Pack is 20-17 all-time against the Lobos away from Albuquerque. Thursday's meeting will be the seventh between the teams at the Mountain West Championship with New Mexico holding a 5-1 edge in the previous six contests.

NEVADA'S MOUNTAIN WEST TOURNAMENT HISTORY
This week marks Nevada's 10th Mountain West Championship appearance since joining the conference in 2013. Overall, out of 11 tournaments held since 2013, Nevada has only missed the event twice (2023-24). The 2020 tournament was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the conference did not hold a tournament in 2021, electing to award its NCAA Tournament auto-bid to the regular-season champion.

Nevada is 11-18 overall at the event and is seeking its first title. The Wolf Pack has thrice been
the No. 1 seed in the draw (2015, 2018, 2025), going 1-6 over those three occasions. Nevada has reached the title game once, in 2016, advancing through the loser's bracket before falling to New Mexico in the first championship contest.

LET'S AVOID SOME MARATHONS
At last year's tournament, Nevada played one of the longest days of baseball in program history. On Friday's three-game schedule, the Pack opened up at 4 p.m. in a winner's bracket game against Fresno State. That 14-inning contest took four hours, 57 minutes to settle, with Nevada on the short end of a 12-7 defeat. After nearly an hour of field prep, the Wolf Pack and San José State played an elimination game which began at 10:10 p.m. Another extra-inning contest, it wrapped in the 10th at 1:28 a.m., a game time of three hours, 18 minutes.

Overall, the Wolf Pack played 24 innings and eight hours, 15 minutes of baseball.

AGAINST THE LOBOS EARLIER THIS SEASON...
Nevada took two of three from New Mexico in Albuquerque from April 17-19, a huge series victory in the Wolf Pack's path towards qualifying for this week's tournament.

Aidan Brainard set the tone in the opener, throwing six scoreless innings and allowing just two hits while striking out seven in the 3-2 win. Andres Castro came on for the save in that contest.

Mikey Cruz Jr. batted .500 (7-for-14) with a double and a triple to lead Nevada, while Jacob Doyle hit two solo homers in the opening win and batted .385 (5-for-13) with two doubles.

Nevada got clutch efforts from members of its bullpen over the weekend, as a group of four relievers in Andres Castro, Luke Schat, Nik Miller, and Eric Valdez combined to hold the Lobos to one run on three hits over 7.2 innings.