What a Finish: Lobos Win Thriller Over SDSU

By Jason Owens - May 23, 2007

UNLV pitcher Brian Billings was outstanding today but New Mexico's Bobby Lofromboise was just a little bit better as the Lobos pulled off a thrilling 1-0 win over SDSU to advance to Thursday's winners' bracket.

Lofromboise finished the complete-game shutout with 157 pitches and every one of them counted. He was one strike away from the win two times before finally closing the Aztecs out. He started the bottom of the ninth giving up a single to Garrett Green to bring Cameron Johnson to the plate with the winning run.

After the Aztecs replaced Green with pinch runner Brandon Decker, Lofromboise threw to first base three times before Decker decided to make a run for second. The fourth time proved to be the charm as Lofromboise's pickoff attempt led to Decker being thrown out at second.

Lofromboise went on to strike out Decker for the second out of the inning. Seemingly in charge for the win, Lofromboise got all he could handle from the rest of the Aztec lineup. Fatigue took over as he walked number nine hitter Pat Colwell to bring the top of the order and the winning run to the plate.

Lofromboise battled with Troy Hanzawa before finally giving up a one-hop infield hit with two strikes. That brought Joe Spiers, SDSU's best hitter to the plate with a chance to be a hero. And for a second, it looked like he would do just that.

After battling Lofromboise to a full count, Spiers hit a sharp ground ball up the middle that looked like it would find the outfield. New Mexico shortstop Scott Gracey had other ideas though, as he made a diving leap toward second base to snag the ball before turning to throw a laser to first that arrived a split-second before Spiers did.

With the win, New Mexico moves on to face top-seeded TCU in tomorrow's winners' bracket. Now SDSU has to somehow regroup and play for their season 40 minutes later in tonight's losers' bracket matchup with Utah. It won't be easy recovering from such a deflating loss in such a short period of time.