March 22, 2014
Albuquerque, N.M. --- San Jose State belted a season-high 16 hits in an 8-5 victory that evened the Mountain West series 1-1 with New Mexico on Saturday at Lobo Field.
All nine batters in the Spartans' starting lineup registered a hit in the win which snapped New Mexico's six-game win streak.
Freshman Alec de Watteville got the offense rolling with his second inning solo shot over the left field fence for his first-career homer. De watteville finished with three hits in the contest.
Kalei Contrades knocked in a pair of runs three batters after the home run on a bases-loaded single into center field to give SJSU a 3-0.
With the lead in hand, Spartans starter Logan Handzlik (2-0) allowed no hits through the first ten Lobos he faced. He ran into some trouble in the fifth inning when New Mexico struck for three runs on four hits to tie the game, 4-4. But a three-run Spartans sixth gave Handzlik another 3-run cushion to work with. He scattered 10 hits over 7.0 innings and allowed five runs on the way to his second win in three 2014 starts.
"I Credit Handzlik," said San Jose State head coach Dave Nakama. "A Freshman, pitching against a good team like that. He did exactly what we needed."
Freshman first baseman Jack Veasey's second hit of the game started the Spartans sixth. Contrades came up big again, this time with a double, which scored Veasey to break the 4-4 tie. Kyle Gallegos and Jacob Valdez also had RBI-hits in the inning.
Matt Lopez registered his third consecutive game with multiple hits going 2-for-4 on Saturday. His sacrifice fly in the seventh inning gave San Jose State an 8-4 lead.
Myles Richard tossed the final 1.2 innings of the ballgame and allowed just one hit on the way to his first save.
"We asked a lot out of some guys who haven't played much this season, and they did a good job," Nakama said. "We pitched well, played good defense, and that's a good team over there."
A win over New Mexico (15-8-1, 5-3) in tomorrow's rubber match would give the Spartans (7-17, 4-7 MW) their first MW series victory of the season.
Contrades (2-0, 1.11) will start for San Jose State in the 12:00 p.m. PDT start.