Momentum was not in the San Diego State baseball team’s favor Sunday afternoon.
What started as an exciting series offensively turned into a depletion of excitement from the Aztecs’ dugout in a 6-0 loss to the Nevada Wolf Pack.
The Aztecs (5-10, 2-4 Mountain West) are in a time of growing and learning.
“We opened up with a Friday night win and then they grabbed the momentum for the last 18 innings and we did nothing to grab it back,” said head coach Shaun Cole. “This group has played aggressive, (and) they’ve played hard and today was the first day where I saw that we were going through the motions. There was just no fight back today.”
SDSU utilized five different pitchers: Xavier Cardenas (1-2), Jonny Guzman, Chris Canavan, Issac Araiza and Jadon Bercovich, who all combined for 8 strikeouts. All of the pitching changes threw the Wolf Pack’s offense for a loop after the fifth inning, holding the score at 4-0 until the ninth.
“The adjustments we made on the pitching side showed well this weekend and that is probably the most irritating thing because pitching was starting to tread in the right direction but then our offense fell back,” Cole said. “That is the biggest thing for all of this year is balance.”
Aztecs lead-off hitter, freshman Finely Bates — who hit his first home run of the season on Friday night — started strong again with a double his first at-bat and single his next in the bottom of the third inning. Bates has been a spark plug for this SDSU team offensively and defensively.
“It feels really good. It’s really important to be aggressive early in the count. (The Wolf Pack) were trying to get ahead early and that’s where a lot of my success came (from),” Bates said. “They were pounding the zone, so just looking to stay on a line up the middle and I found success in that.”
In many instances where SDSU had players on base, hitters found a Nevada defensive man each time. Nine Aztec base runners were left stranded with no way of getting home.
“We have to continually be aggressive, that is our identity as a team. When we get down early, we really have to work on keeping the energy up and find a way to get the momentum to switch,” Bates said.
The Aztecs have the potential as they are youthful with a lot of fight in them.
“We are in the ‘compete stage,’ but we are not in the ‘win stage’ yet,” coach Cole said. “The key is staying together, working on your weaknesses and consistently trying to go out every night and play good baseball.”
Next up, the Aztecs will host UC Riverside at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 12 at Tony Gwynn Stadium.
