March 23, 2001
San Diego - San Diego State took advantage of five New Mexico errors and some clutch hitting to defeat the Lobos, 8-5, Friday evening at the Albuquerque Sports Stadium. The win was the sixth straight for the Aztecs, their longest win streak since the 1997 season when they won 12 in a row.
The victory kept SDSU (16-9) at the top of the Mountain West Conference standings at 5-2, tied with Utah and a half game over Brigham Young. Earlier in the day, the Utes defeated UNLV (8-2) while BYU fell to Air Force (15-11). New Mexico, meanwhile, dropped to 12-21 on the season and 2-5 in league play.
Sophomore right-hander Rory Shortell went 7 1/3 innings, striking out five, to pick up his fourth win of the season. Reliever Royce Ring, who came on in the bottom of the eighth inning, finished the game and recorded his fourth save of the year.
The Aztecs opened the game with a pair of unearned runs in the first and another in the third as New Mexico committed errors in four different innings. Carlo Cota went 3-for-3 with sacrifice bunt while Brian Manfred went 2-for-4 with two runs scored and an RBI triple.
SDSU went on to open up a 7-0 lead with two runs in both the fourth and fifth innings before the Lobos got on the board with a single run in their half of the fifth. In the fourth, Pilar Amaya doubled and scored on a triple by catcher Brian Manfred who came in on a groundout by Taber Lee. The Aztec fifth saw Cota single and score on a double by Jacob Minter. Sean Pierce then singled in Minter for SDSU's seventh run of the game.
UNM mounted a comeback with a run in the seventh and three in the eighth before Ring came on to close out the victory for the Aztecs.
The Aztecs and Lobos continue their three-game series Saturday evening at 7:00 p.m. (MST).
San Diego State 8, New Mexico 5SDSU 201 220 010 - 8 11 1UNM 000 010 130 - 5 12 5Shortell, Skinner (8), Ring (8) and ManfredCooper, DeYapp (6) and TajimaW - Shortell (4-1)L - Cooper (2-4)Sv - Ring (4)HR - NoneTime - 3:08Att. - 703