Out in left field for the UNLV Rebels was a young man named famously, Joe DiMaggio. But on this cool night out at Blair Field, not even the hall of fame DiMaggio would have helped the Rebels much against the Dirtbags.
Long Beach State (13-11) was impressive playing efficient small-ball, getting 10 hits (all singles), stealing five bases and getting five sacrifice hits. That was plenty for junior lefty, Adam Wilk, who gave the home team another strong outing in the Dirtbags 7-3 win last night.
Wilk was on, working both sides of the plate and pitching comfortably with a lead early. His calm demeanor paced the effort, as Dirtbags fans enjoyed a slow-paced but much controlled game.
It’s almost hard to believe UNLV (8-12) held the lead after putting up a run in top of the first when Ryan Thorton smacked a leadoff triple and scored on a hit by Drew Beuerlein. But a season-high five errors for the Rebels opened it up for the Dirtbags taking as they scored runs in each of the first three innings.
Long Beach State countered the Rebels top of the first inning by getting the top two hitters in their lineup to score. Sophomore Jonathan Jones scored on safe squeeze by junior TJ Mittelstaedt and junior Tre Dennis scored on an error by Rebel shortstop Anthony Morel. And that was enough to spark the Dirtbags offense as they didn’t fail to have a runner reach third base in an inning the whole game.
Junior Jordan Casas, sophomore Kellen Hoime and Jones all scored runs for the Dirtbags in the second. Casas scored on a single by Jones, Hoime came around to score on a throwing error from Rebels first baseman Jesse Wight on a play where Jones was picked off going to second, but reached when the ball went off Moriel’s glove and into the outfield. Jones would come around and scored on a two-out single to left by sophomore Devin Lohman.
The third marked the final pitches thrown by UNLV pitcher Jeff Urlaub who was taken out after giving up a hit to Hoime that scored junior Taylor Krick.
The rebels added a pair of runs in the back to back innings off Wilk with RBI hits from Scott Berke in the fourth and Thorton in the fifth.
Dirtbags’ freshman Derek Legg had the defensive play of the night in the sixth when he closed out the inning by fielding a shot up the middle that nipped Wilk in the mound, and fielded the ball and flick it to first in one motion for the out.
That seemed to surge the Dirtbags who loaded the bases in the bottom half of the inning but couldn’t push a run across the board. But they did score in the seventh when Jones walked, stole second and scored on another clutch hit from Lohman to give the bullpen a four-run cushion as they took over for Wilk (6 2/3 innings, three runs on eight hits and three strikeouts).
After the Rebels scored a run off Junior Jason Markovitz, his classmate Charlie Ruiz came in the ninth made the first hitter look silly, walked a batter and then struck out the final two hitters on six-pitches to end the game.