Aztecs Get Started Early, Rout Middle Tennessee State

The San Diego State baseball team woke up Thursday morning, went out in the Early Bird Special of the NCAA Tournament West I Regional--9 a.m. start--and quickly finished off Middle Tennessee State, 18-6.

It wasn’t as close as it sounds. Middle Tennessee State got three runs in the ninth at Stanford’s Sunken Diamond.

“What can you say?” SDSU Coach Jim Dietz wondered. “It was just one of those days.”

It started with Bill Dunckel, the Aztec leadoff batter, who put Chris Crabtree’s first pitch in the bottom of the first far over the 335-foot sign on the left-field fence. Then he stepped up in the second and hit another one out. He added two more hits and finished with six runs batted in.

“I don’t think they had a good scouting report,” Dunckel said. “It looked like (Crabtree) was throwing, not pitching.”

Dunckel said he has shortened his swing since last weekend’s Western Athletic Conference championship in Hawaii. A Palomar Community College graduate, he entered the game batting .333 with four home runs.

“This was one of my better days,” he said. “I like the morning. You just wake up, go out and play ball.”

The Aztecs play fifth-seeded Fresno State (38-22) at 4 p.m. today. Fresno State defeated second-seeded Southern Illinois, 3-2.

Dietz was relieved to have gotten started with a victory--the Aztecs 14th in a row.

“In a six-team, double-elimination regional, it’s crucial,” Dietz said. “I don’t think anybody has enough pitching to lose the first day and come back. It would take Hercules to come back.”

No. 4-seeded Middle Tennessee State (42-14) got two runs in the first off SDSU’s Kurt Archer (8-2). Then, No. 3 SDSU (47-20) took over.

Dunckel started it with his first home run. Three batters later, Jeff Barry reached first on an error. Darin McGhee doubled. Up stepped Brian Grebeck.

Have we mentioned him?

He singled home two runs in the first, then walked twice with the bases loaded--in the second and sixth--for two more RBIs.

Archer lasted until the ninth, when Brian Holliday came in with one out to finish things. In 8 1/3 innings, Archer was charged with six runs (five earned) and eight hits. He walked six and struck out seven.

It wasn’t a good day for Middle Tennessee State pitchers. Crabtree, 10-1 with a 2.95 earned-run average entering the game, lasted 1 1/3 innings. He gave up seven runs--four earned, five hits, three walks and two home runs.

He was replaced by Scott Morgan in the second, but Morgan got off to a bad start, too. He came in with two on and proceeded to walk the next two batters. In all, four Middle Tennessee State pitchers walked nine SDSU batters.

It wasn’t a good day for Middle Tennessee State, period. The Blue Raiders made five errors and spent their morning feeling like the emperor who had lost his clothes.

“This team is embarrassed,” said Steve Peterson, Middle Tennessee State coach. “And they ought to be. They didn’t come however many miles to play like this.

“This team was ready to play. SDSU beat us like a drum, and that’s all there is to it. They’re a good ballclub.”

Said Scott Dennison, the Aztecs’ second baseman: “I didn’t think we played as well as we usually do. A couple of guys weren’t swinging the bats as well as usual.”

You could have fooled the Blue Raiders. By the end of the second, the Aztecs were ahead, 7-2. SDSU went on to score three more in the sixth, three in the seventh and five in the eighth.

The Aztecs sent seven batters to the plate in the first, nine in the second, eight in the sixth, six in the seventh and nine in the eighth. All 10 Aztecs who batted got at least one hit.

In the seventh, SDSU put together five hits in a row at one point. In the eighth, the Aztecs strung together four consecutive hits. Then Barry reached on an error, and Eric Christopherson got another hit.

Steve Boucher went four for four with two RBIs, and that came on a nearly empty stomach.

The wake-up calls started ringing in SDSU’s hotel rooms around 6 a.m. Dietz leaves the players to eat on their own, and several wandered down the street to Denny’s. But their bus was leaving from their hotel at 7, and they said service was slow. Boucher didn’t even eat.

That’s life on the road. The Aztecs left San Diego by bus Tuesday at 6 p.m. and didn’t arrive in Los Banos, their destination for the night, until 3 a.m. They took off around 11 a.m. Wednesday, and ran smack into a traffic jam caused by a jack-knifed semi. That was a two-hour delay.

“Everybody was really beat,” Dennison said.

Then came the early wake-up calls Thursday.

“It was terrible,” Boucher said.

“It wasn’t good,” Archer said.

“I liked it,” Dunckel said.

Figures.

Aztec Notes

Third baseman Steve Boucher’s sacrifice bunt in the third broke an SDSU record. It was his 14th of the season. . . . SDSU Coach Jim Dietz said either Erik Plantenberg (10-4, 2.77 ERA) or Andy Peterson (9-2, 2.78) will start against Fresno State today. It will likely be Peterson. . . . Camel Watch: The Campbell Fighting Camels (15-32), who lost to No. 1 Stanford in the final game Thursday, 7-0, come from Buies Creek, N.C. There are five stop signs in town, and no stoplights or hotels. A total of 4,195 students are enrolled, and Coach Mike Caldwell, a former Padre, was the Cy Young runner-up when he was 22-9 for the Milwaukee Brewers. Former major league pitchers Gaylord and Jim Perry both went to Campbell.