9th-inning collapse costs UNLV victory

With three outs remaining in its Mountain West Conference Baseball Tournament opener against San Diego State Wednesday night, UNLV had the Aztecs right where it wanted them.

Leading 6-2 and with starting pitcher Ryan Olson trying to put the finishing touches on a masterful outing, the Rebels had a rested Andy McCulloch, their ace closer, waiting in the bullpen should the need arise.

With seemingly everything going in UNLV's favor, San Diego State attacked what has been the Rebels' Achilles' heel this season: The Aztecs hit the ball to freshman shortstop Zach Strong.

Strong's bobble of an apparent routine grounder off the bat of SDSU's Paul Lockhart opened the floodgates to a five-run inning that swept the Rebels into the loser's bracket with a crushing 7-6 loss at Wilson Stadium.

UNLV played Air Force this morning at 11 a.m. in a loser-out game. Other second-round matchups today have New Mexico playing Utah at 3 p.m. and BYU taking on San Diego State at 7.

The error was the third of the game for Strong, which prompted Rebels head coach Rod Soesbe to make the following assessment: "You could almost see him probably not wanting the ball to be hit to him there."

San Diego State, which was the home team by virtue of its higher seeding in the tournament, managed only two unearned runs on four hits against Olson through eight innings, but parlayed the leadoff error in the ninth into a game-winning rally.

After Lockhart reached on the error, McCulloch relieved Olson and promptly walked the first batter he faced. One out later, McCulloch surrendered an RBI single to Chad Redfern before striking out Taber Lee for the second out of the inning.

McCulloch then walked the next batter he faced to load the bases and Carlo Cota followed with an RBI single to make it 6-4. Edgar Gonzalez walked with the bases loaded to pull the Aztecs to within a run and Jacob Minter's single to center ended the game.

The Aztecs' rally spoiled an outstanding outing by Olson, the sophomore left-hander who struck out seven and walked only two in eight-plus innings. Olson was the lone UNLV player named to the All-Mountain West Conference first team.

"Olson was up to 117, 118 pitches and he was getting tired," Soesbe said. "It was the right decision to bring Mac in -- and we'd do the same thing again.

"Ryan pitched a beautiful game, but he was losing a lot off his pitches. Andy's our guy and you have to go with your closer to finish it; he hasn't blown a save all year long."

UNLV grabbed a 6-2 lead on a two-run home run by Harold Betts in the fourth, a two-run single by Tony DeMarco in the seventh and a solo homer by Trent Kitsch in the eighth.

In other first-round games Wednesday, No. 1 seed New Mexico blasted sixth-seed Air Force 17-3 and third-seed BYU got past fourth-seed Utah 9-6.

Brian Hilderbrand is a Las Vegas Sun sportswriter. Reach him at 259-4089 or by e-mail at [email protected].

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