Feb. 24, 2002

LAS VEGAS - The UNLV baseball team fell to UC-Santa Barbara 3-2 in the final game of the UNLV Tournament. The loss drops the Rebels to 6-7 on the season, while the Gauchos improve to 9-6.

Despite picking up the loss, UNLV starter Courtney Hall (0-2) had one of the best Rebel pitching outings all season. He threw 7.0 innings, giving up only two runs on five hits.

Jeremy Weinberg and Joe Maruffi combined to finish the game. Weinberg gave up one run on two hits in an inning of work, and Maruffi finished the final inning with two strikeouts.

UCSB's Matt Vasquez (3-1) earned the win. He pitched 8.2 innings, giving up two runs on four hits. Jared Edrosolan picked up his second save on the season pitching the final out.

UNLV was held scoreless through eight and mounted a final inning comeback in the ninth. Down two with two outs, Robert VanKirk doubled to deep center field setting up David Trujillo's RBI double to the right-center gap.

A Jason Reuss single to left field would score Trujillo, but the rally would end there, as Edrosolan was able to field a grounder by Tony Schuler for the final out.

Five Rebels contributed a single hit each in the game. David Trujillo finished 1-for-4 with an RBI and one run scored. Ryan Ruiz and Eric Nielsen added a single hit each.

"We faced three very talented ball clubs this weekend," said UNLV head coach Jim Schlossnagle. "Creighton is a great team and will win a lot of games. Michigan State, if they stay healthy, should finish near the top of the Big Ten standings and Santa Barbara has already proven that they can win games.

"We've got a couple more tournaments ahead of us over the next two weeks with some of the toughest opponents in the country, and I doubt that any team will be as prepared for the conference season as we will be."

UNLV travels to Lancaster, Calif., for the Clash of the Conferences next weekend. They will take on George Washington, Purdue and Cal State Northridge.