COLLEGE: Nevada sweeps NMSU

RENO - Brock Stassi summed up the weekend perfectly for the Nevada Wolf Pack baseball team.

"Our starting pitching was phenomenal," said Stassi after the Wolf Pack completed a four-game Western Athletic Conference series sweep over the New Mexico State Aggies on Saturday at Peccole Park with an 8-3 victory.

"The key to everything is pitching," Wolf Pack coach Gary Powers said. "That's where it all starts."

Stassi started and went five innings on Saturday and gave up just one earned run to pick up his first victory since he beat Louisiana Tech on May 22, 2010 at Peccole Park.

"He was solid, very solid," Powers said.

The four Wolf Pack starters in the series - Tom Jameson, Troy Marks, Jeremy Cole and Stassi combined to go 4-0 in the series with a 1.26 ERA over 28.2 innings. The solid work of the starters required the Pack to go to its bullpen for just 5.1 innings over the four games.

Cole and Jameson pitched shutouts as the Pack pitching staff allowed just six runs in the series, its fewest number of runs allowed in a WAC series since the conference went to a four-game series format in 2008.

"They came in and pounded the strike zone," said Powers, whose improving team is now 15-20 overall and 4-3 in the WAC. "That's important against a team like New Mexico State, which likes to take a lot of pitches and work the count. Our guys came in and threw strikes and got ahead in the count and were very consistent in doing that this weekend."

Stassi, making his fourth start of the year, threw 92 pitches. He fanned Tyler Owens with the bases loaded to get out of the first inning and did the same to Zachary Voight with runners on second and third to end the second inning.

The lefthander, though, had to battle through his five innings. He only retired the Aggies (27-13, 5-7) in order in one inning (the fourth) and got some help from his defense when catcher Carlos Escobar picked Owens off first base to end the fifth inning with another runner on second.

The Pack, though, helped Stassi settle down with two runs in the second and four more in the third for a 6-1 lead.

Garrett Yrigoyen was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to tie the game at 1-1 and Nick Melino scored on a double play grounder by Escobar for a 2-1 lead in the second.

The Pack then scored four runs in the third to take control of the game.

Melino was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to force in a run for a 3-1 lead. Hugo Hernandez and Yrigoyen also had key run-scoring singles in the third as the Pack gave Stassi some breathing room.

"It always helps when you are pitching with a lead," Stassi said.

Mark Joukoff, Tim Culligan and Matt Gardner finished up the victory with four solid innings of work in relief. Joukoff didn't allow a base runner in two innings, Culligan allowed a run on two hits in the eighth inning and Gardner pitched a shutout ninth inning.

The victory on Saturday gave the Pack its first four-game WAC series sweep since it blitzed Louisiana Tech March 20-22, 2008 at Peccole Park.

"We're a better team than our record shows," Powers said. "We've played a very tough schedule. A lot of people forget that. I thought we played well even last week (when the Pack lost three games at Fresno State). We competed in all those games and if we were really an 11-20 team, or whatever our record was at the time, we couldn't have done that.

"So we're getting better. You know, it's all about one week in May (at the conference tournament May 25-29 in Mesa, Ariz.). We're just trying to get to where we're playing our best baseball at that point in the season. We're heading in that direction."