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For nearly five innings, the BYU Cougar baseball team seemed to have the MWC-leading New Mexico Lobos on their heels in the first game of the three-game series at Miller Field on Thursday night.
Cougar starter Jake Wortham faced only 14 Lobos batters through the first four innings, recorded two strikeouts and forced eight ground ball outs. But the Lobo bats woke up in the fifth and sixth innings to knock Wortham out of the game prematurely and helped New Mexico (28-19, 12-4 MWC) snap a five-game losing streak with a 9-7 victory over the Cougars (18-27, 6-10) in front of only 385 freezing cold fans.
The Lobos entered the night 3-15 in games that they failed to reach the 10-hit mark for the game. And through the first four innings, New Mexico had recorded only four hits and zero runs. New Mexico came alive in the following two innings to record a combined seven hits and improves their mark to 25-4 on the season in games that they do reach the 10-hit mark for a game.
The Cougars struck first in the home half of the first inning when leftfielder Sean McNaughton roped his 12th home run of the season over the centerfield wall to give BYU the early 1-0 lead. The Cougars offense struck again in the second inning when Steve Parker, who finished 3-for-4 in the game with one RBI, scored on a Michael Bowen bunt single. BYU added one more run in the third inning after Parker drove in Kasey Ko with an RBI base hit.
Trailing 3-0 in the fifth inning the Lobos offense responded by taking advantage of two doubles, a single and a BYU error to tie the score at three runs apiece. BYU took the lead back in the bottom half of the fifth inning after a Dan Vargas single scored McNaughton and a Parker base knock drove in Vargas to give the Cougars the 6-5 advantage heading into the sixth frame.
Wortham, who gave up five earned runs in the contest, returned to the bump with the lead, but after walking the first New Mexico batter he faced, he surrendered five hits to the next six batters he faced before making his early exit. The Lobos struck for five runs in the visitors half of the sixth to take the lead for good.
BYU's defense struggled throughout the cold night, committing three errors that led to three unearned runs.
New Mexico starting pitcher Bobby Lafromboise, who entered the night with two complete games in only eight starts and improved his record to 5-2 on the year, was knocked out early in the sixth inning with the Cougars rallying and runners at second and third and only one out. But relief pitcher Will Kerr put a stop to the rally as the Cougars only converted one run from the inning.
The Cougars and Lobos square off again tonight at 7 p.m. at Miller Field. |
