April 18, 2014
San Jose, Calif. --- San Jose State found itself on the losing side of both games in Friday's Mountain West doubleheader against the New Mexico Lobos at Municipal Stadium.
The Spartans (12-27, 6-14 MW) allowed a season-high 21 hits and got beat 14-2 in game one before falling to the Lobos (28-11-1, 12-4) 5-2 in the night cap.
"Those guys across the way are really good," said SJSU head coach Dave Nakama. "We also didn't play well, and you can't play from behind against these guys."
San Jose State fell in a hole in the early innings of both games.
The Lobos went off for 10 runs on 13 hits in the first three innings alone of the first contest. SJSU starter Johnny Melero (2-5) lasted 2 1/3 innings allowing 10 runs, five earned on 11 hits.
Mike Simonini led off the Spartans' third with a base hit and came around to score three batters later on a fielder's choice hit by Jacob Valdez. SJSU scored its only other run in the seventh when Matt Carroll reached on an error on scored on Kalei Contrades' single up the middle.
Both of the runs were aided by errors and went down as unearned runs to New Mexico pitchers.
Colton Thomson (5-4) walked away with the win in game one for the Lobos.
New Mexico picked up right where it left off in game two against Spartans starter Jonathan Hernandez (0-5). The Lobos scored one in the first and two in the second on a total of five hits.
Hernandez kept the Spartans in the game by settling in during the next three innings where he allowed no hits. He was lifted in favor of Myles Richard after tossing six innings.
The Spartans scored two runs on three hits in the bottom of the fifth inning to make it a 3-2 game. Alec de Watteville started things off with a single and came around to score when the next batter Andre Mercurio double to left field. De Wattville took home on a misplay by the left fielder which was ruled an error.
Kyle Gallegos moved Mercurio to third with a single up the middle, and Valdez brought him home with a sacrifice bunt making it 3-2.
New Mexico got the two runs back in the top of the eighth inning and turned things over to Victor Sanchez who notched his seventh save after a 1-2-3 ninth.
Carson Schneider (2-0) threw 2 1/3 innings allowing no hits and struck out one on the way to a win.
"We didn't execute today, and we played awful in game one," Nakama said. "Those guys are too good for us to play like that. We'll have to see what happens tomorrow."
The two teams hit the field for game three of the series tomorrow afternoon at 1:00 p.m.
NOTES: Matt Lopez extended his career-long hit streak to 11 games ... Andre Mercurio has now reached base in 15 consecutive games ... the two teams played a doubleheader after Thursday's game was postponed due to playing surface conditions down the right-field line.