College Baseball : San Diego State Sweeps By New Mexico

The San Diego State baseball team, losers of seven of their first 10 Western Athletic Conference Southern Division games and struggling offensively, got some timely hitting Tuesday to defeat 19th-ranked New Mexico in a doubleheader at Smith Field.

The Aztecs won the first game, 6-5, then won the second, 13-3, to improve their record to 37-21-1 overall and 5-7 in the WAC. New Mexico, the Southern Division leaders, fell to 36-11 overall and 8-4 in conference play. The second game was called after seven innings because of the conference’s 10-run lead rule.

Jay Slotnick hit a two-run home run to complete a five-run Lobo rally in the sixth inning of the first game and give New Mexico a 5-4 lead before SDSU rallied in the bottom of the inning.

Ron Vanegas opened the inning with a double and moved to third on Deron Johnson’s ground out. After Scott Webb grounded out, Mark Holvey lined a single to center to score Vanegas and tie the game. Catcher Steve Castleberry followed with a double to the left-field fence to score Holvey and make a winner of reliever Paul Claes (3-2). Rod Nichols (3-3) took the loss.

In the nightcap, the Aztecs scored six times in the fifth inning to snap a 3-3 tie. Chris Gwynn’s double brought in the tie-breaking run and opened the door for the big inning.

Mike Erb (7-2) came on in relief of Tom Stanley in the fourth inning and went the rest of the way to pick up the victory.

Elsewhere in college baseball:

UC San Diego 13, Pomona Pitzer 5--David Mendoza and John Rosness hit home runs and David Stanovich and Dan DiMascio each had three hits to lead the Tritons (19-17-1) to the victory at Pomona. David de Cordova struck out seven during the first five innings to pick up the win for UCSD.

Cal State Long Beach 5, USD 4 (11 innings)--Paul Thibert’s RBI single in the 11th inning gave the 49ers the victory in a nonconference game at USD. The Toreros (12-29-1) had tied the game in the bottom of the ninth on run-scoring singles by Robbie Rogers and Mark Trafton. Trafton had three hits for USD, which plays San Diego State at 2:3 p.m. Thursday at USD.