Final home series holds plenty of significance

Winning is really tough to do, especially against conference teams on the road, but we had a great weekend in San Diego last week! It is really hard to beat the weather down there, but what made the weekend special is that we were able to pick up a series victory. It was our first series win over San Diego State at Tony Gwynn Stadium since 2007.

We were kind of rolling and we had some confidence going into our series with the Aztecs. We may have lost Friday, but Kenny Oakley pitched great, our defense played well and we swung the bats pretty well against Bubba Derby, who is one of the better pitchers in the conference. We ended up dropping that game because we just didn’t capitalize on some opportunities and they did.

On Saturday and Sunday, we played the game the right way and ended up winning both contests. Coach Stolte often talks about karma rewarding us by saying, “If we play the right way, things will go your way.” I think that happened for us last weekend.

This weekend is really big for a few reasons. We host Fresno State for three games beginning on Friday and we are still in a battling for a better seed in the conference tournament. This is also my last weekend to play at home.

That’s really weird to think about. The thought that I won’t play at Earl E. again hasn’t totally hit me yet. I haven’t had time to really sit down and think about it and hopefully I keep it that way. I don’t want to worry about the “last time.” I want to focus on getting through the weekend, getting a series victory and hopefully pulling off three wins.

The Bulldogs are talented every year and they are well coached. I think when we were going up there I mentioned how tough of a team they are, and they proved it by sweeping us. They have struggled this year at times but they are a good team.

Every game counts at this point of the season and we realize that it does for them too. They are trying to move up in the standings too and get in better position for the conference tourney. They are going to come in and play their tails off and we are going to have to do the same thing.

Currently we are two games behind Air Force in the Mountain West standings with six games remaining. These last two weeks we really just need to worry about ourselves and take care of business. If we don’t put up a few wins than it really doesn’t matter what the Falcons do, so we need to come out and play the game the way we have been playing. We need to worry about us first and then after we take care of business we can start looking at what Air Force is doing.

There are some pretty cool giveaways set up for this weekend. On Friday night the first 250 fans get a UNLV baseball hat and on Sunday the first 250 fans will get a really cool “UNLV Baseball Drawstring Backpack.”

Thanks for all of your support this season! We look forward to seeing you out at Earl E. Wilson Stadium one last time!

-Erik VanMeetren