Third-place Rebels to battle Texas Christian in key series

Don't waste time analyzing UNLV's baseball season as a whole.

Take a look at the record and it's easy to believe the season has been a disappointment.

But, as any college coach will say, conference play is a campaign unto itself.

That campaign continues for UNLV with a three-game series against Texas Christian, which starts tonight at 7:05 p.m. at Wilson Stadium.

The Rebels are 21-25 overall and 10-8 in the Western Athletic Conference.

They are in third place in the WAC standings, six games behind the Horned Frogs. TCU (26-17, 17-3) is a half-game behind Rice for the conference lead.

The top six teams qualify for the WAC tournament May 19-22.

"This is a big series for us," Rebel head coach Rod Soesbe said.

UNLV has lost five of its last eight games. Four of those were to WAC teams.

"The kids know how important this is," Soesbe said.

"Losing two out of three at Utah (last weekend) hurt us because that lets the other teams behind us catch up a little bit.

"But the good thing about being in third place right now is we can take care of it ourselves and don't have to count on anybody else."

The Rebels have struggled at the plate recently, scoring 17 runs in their last five losses. They will be trying to break out against one of the top pitching tandems in the country in right-handers Scott Atchison and Shawn Thompson.

Atchison is 8-2 with a 2.44 ERA. In 70 innings he has struck out 78 and walked only 19. Thompson has a 5.55 ERA.

But in 76 innings he has whiffed 76 batters while walking 24.

"They gotta be pretty good power pitchers with the kind of numbers they have," Soesbe said. "They're dominating."

Atchison will face Andy McCulloch (3-5, 5.30) tonight. Thompson will go against Bill Scheffels (2-3, 5.61) Saturday at 7:05 p.m. An undetermined TCU pitcher will battle Ryan Olson (2-2, 6.15) Sunday at 1:05 p.m.

"What we need to do is get back to swinging the bat like we're used to," Soesbe said. "We've been playing a lot and didn't have the workout days to get the repetitions in."

The Rebel offense will be helped by the return of first baseman Brian Hertel, who missed the Utah series with a bruised knee. Hertel is hitting .351 with four home runs and 32 RBIs.

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