May 21, 2014
Nakama Postgame Reaction
Contrades Postgame Reaction
MW Championship Central
Las Vegas, Nev. --- A dominating performance by Kalei Contrades (5-2) together with a season-high in runs gave San Jose State an 11-3 win over Air Force in the program's first championship tournament contest as a member of the Mountain West. The No. 7 seed Spartans ended the day at Earl E. Wilson Stadium with a split after losing the day's second game 15-1 to the No. 3 seed San Diego State.
"Kalei has been our best guy," Nakama said. "He's been the steadiest, and I was just hoping he'd give us a chance to win. But he did more than that."
After receiving second-team all-conference honors before the game, Contrades went out and pitched the first complete game of his career. He struck out a career-high 11 and finished allowing seven hits and three earned runs. Contrades has now strung together four outings in a row of more than eight innings, and is 3-0 during that stretch with a 2.04 ERA.
"I got ahead in the count and then the slider was working for me today," Contrades said. "My defense backed me up, and the hitting obviously backed me up with an 11-spot. All the credit goes to them."
San Jose State got the leadoff man aboard in eight innings, five of which came around to score. Andre Mercurio set the trend, leading off the game with a single, and then giving SJSU the 1-0 lead on Sheldon Daquioag's RBI-single up the middle.
Mercurio, along with Kyle Gallegos in the two-hole and Jacob Valdez in the three-hole, combined to go 9-for-14 with six runs and five RBI. All three players finished with three hits, and everybody in the Spartans' order registered at least one base knock.
"That's the strength of our offense," Nakama said. "We don't have a lot of power so we have to get guys on and execute."
After Valdez's RBI-single and Matt Lopez's squeeze bunt gave SJSU a 3-0 lead in the third, Air Force scored twice in the bottom of the frame to make it a 3-2 game. However the San Jose State offense continued, scoring twice in both the fifth and sixth innings. Valdez was in the mix again, collecting his second and third RBI with another single and a double which helped the Spartans take a 7-2 lead.
Gallegos made it 8-2 with a sacrifice fly in the eighth. Then after the Falcons scored their third run, SJSU piled on three more in the top of the ninth to make it 11-3. Matt Carroll singled in Daquioag who led off with a walk, and Mike Simonini hit a 2-run single up the middle.
Cameron White (4-8) took the loss for Air Force. The Spartans got to him with seven earned runs on 12 hits.
The second game of the day turned out to be a completely different story. San Jose State was shutout until the ninth inning when Valdez tripled and scored on a sac fly hit by Lopez.
San Diego State jumped out to a 4-0 lead on Spartans starter Jonathan Hernandez (0-7) during the first four innings. The Aztecs scored all their runs in four innings, all with crooked numbers. An 8-run eighth inning extended the SDSU lead to 15-0.
Bubba Derby (8-3) tossed eight innings of shutout ball for the Aztecs, allowing seven hits in the win.
San Jose State still has life in the double-elimination tournament which continues tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. when either Fresno State or Nevada will toe up with the Spartans. Myles Richard (2-3, 4.33) will make his first start of the year.