Title No Edge for Aztecs in WAC Tournament

For coach of a baseball team that is coming off its first series victory in Hawaii since 1981, San Diego State’s Jim Dietz is taking a cautious approach to his team’s chances in the Western Athletic Conference tournament.

The reason for his guarded outlook is that despite their regular-season championship, the Aztecs must open on Hawaii’s home field today in the heat of the afternoon sun. Hawaii will open at night, when it will have a better chance of drawing a large crowd to Rainbow Stadium.

The winner of the double-elimination tournament will receive the conference’s automatic berth in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament.

“It bothers me a little bit that we win a league title and don’t have the option of hosting a playoff game,” Dietz said Wednesday from his Honolulu hotel. “Being the host team in the playoffs is a big advantage.”

Lack of a home-field advantage did not bother the Aztecs too much over the weekend, when they won 3 of 4 games from the Rainbows (40-19-1, 21-6-1 in WAC) in Honolulu. The victories gave the Aztecs (45-16-1, 21-5) the conference regular-season title. But that did not change the site of the conference tournament; Hawaii had been designated as the host school before the season started.

The No. 3-seeded Rainbows also have the advantage of playing their first-round game at 7 tonight (10 p.m. PDT) against No. 2 Brigham Young (38-16-1, 20-5-1). Top-seeded SDSU will open the tournament at 6:30 p.m. PDT against No. 4 Wyoming (24-25, 14-13).

“That’s the disadvantage of not being the host team,” Dietz said. “We’re the first-place team, and we don’t even get our pick of playing times. We have to play in the heat of the day.”

The Aztecs are not without some advantages. Dietz kept the team in Honolulu after the weekend series rather than return to San Diego for several days.

“It’s helped us get acclimated,” Dietz said. “We’re lucky we’ve stayed, because it was 89 degrees (Tuesday), and with the humidity, that makes it a real scorcher.”

That could be an edge against the Cowboys, who are coming from the cooler climate of Wyoming. Three weeks ago, the Cowboys ended the Aztecs’ 19-game winning streak when they beat them in the second game of a doubleheader in Laramie, Wyo. The teams went on to split a four-game series.

The tournament continues Friday with a tripleheader. The losers of the first-round games play at 3 p.m. PDT, and the first-round winners play at 6:30. The winner of Friday’s first game will meet the loser of the second at 10.

The tournament ends Saturday with the winner of Friday’s second game playing the winner of Friday’s third game at 7 p.m. PDT. A second game for the championship, if necessary, would be at 10:30.