MWC: Two out of Three's Not Bad

By Jason Owens - May 24, 2007

It only got uglier for the Utes, whose season painfully and slowly crawled to an end as the San Diego State batters continued to punish their pitching though the end of the game. The Aztecs went through three Utah pitchers and scored five runs in the ninth to secure a 12-1 win and advance to Thursday play.

Nobody was left out of the fun for the Aztecs as every position player contributed to the 17 hits and all but two had two or more. Pat Colwell (3-for-4 with three runs scored) and Matt Parker (2-for-5 with three RBI and two runs scored) led the offensive effort. They could have used a couple of those runs for the first game that they lost 1-0, but the 12-run outburst should give them confidence heading into tomorrow's play.

Steven Hirschfeld was the star, capping off a day of stellar pitching performances that really is the story of the day. Hirschfeld logged nine strikeouts and gave up the first Utah run of the game on a passed ball with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

The performance comes on the heels of Bobby Lofromboise's stellar 1-0 shutout over San Diego State in which he had just enough to top another great performance from the Aztecs' Brian Billings.

San Diego State's win sets up a matchup with the loser of tomorrow's BYU-New Mexico game while TCU and UNLV battle in the afternoon game.

I would be okay with a repeat of today's action tomorrow with two out of the three games being nail-biters. Those are the best odds I'll find in Vegas. I just hope that one of the good games could be saved for the evening session. A 12-1 game at the end of an 11-hour day is not the ideal way to end a triple-header.