May 21, 2008
| Game Highlights |
FORT WORTH, Texas - A late RBI single by Brett Tanos and an outstanding pitching performance by Nate Solow combined to give San Diego State a 1-0 win over Brigham Young in an elimination game at the 2008 Mountain West Conference Tournament in Fort Worth, Texas. The victory kept the Aztecs alive at the league championship event as they improved to 31-27 on the year. The Cougars saw their season end with a final record of 22-36.
The game was a classic pitchers duel between Solow and Brigham Young right-hander Blake Torgerson. Over the first six innings, Solow allowed just one hit with the only other BYU runner reaching on an error. After a two-out double in the second by BYU's Sean McNaughton, Solow retired 12 straight batters until Steve Parker singled with two out in the seventh.
Torgerson, meanwhile, gave up only three hits over the first six frames. Although SDSU had two runners on base on two occasions over that period, he was able to keep the Aztecs off the scoreboard.
San Diego State finally broke through against Torgerson in the bottom of the seventh. Brandon Decker battled back from a 0-2 count to draw a two-out walk and advanced to second on a single up the middle by Erik Castro. Tanos followed with his game-winning single to bring Decker home with the lone run of the contest.
The drama was far from over, however, as Brigham Young would mount a threat in its final at bat. After retiring the first two hitters to begin the top of the ninth, Solow gave up a walk to Kasey Ko and a single to right to Steve Parker that put the tying run at third. At that point senior Shane Kaufman was brought out of the bullpen and he proceeded to induce Casey Cluff into hitting a soft line drive to Troy Hanzawa at shortstop to end the contest.
That final out made a winner of Solow, who improved to 6-7 on the year after going 8.2 innings and allowing four hits with a walk and six strikeouts. Kaufman recorded his first save of the season while Torgerson was the hard-luck loser who saw his record fall to 6-5.
San Diego State's next tournament contest will be another elimination game against the loser of the Utah-New Mexico game being played Wednesday afternoon. That contest will get underway Thursday morning (May 22) at 11:00 a.m. (CDT) at TCU's Lupton Stadium.