April 28, 2008
UNLV Baseball Media Notes 
IN THE BATTER'S BOX: UNLV (19-23, 8-10 MWC) begins the last leg of a nine-game road trip by traveling to California for a midweek series at Cal State Northridge (17-22, 5-10 Big West) that gets underway on Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. (PDT) at Matador Field. The series conludes on Wednesday with the first pitch set for 3:00 p.m., and from there the Rebels will travel to play a three-game series at Cal Poly that gets underway on Friday. UNLV is coming off a series defeat at Utah this past weekend, in which the Rebels lost the opener 10-2 on Friday, rebounded to win on Saturday, 4-3, and then lost the finale on Sunday, 9-4. Xavier Scruggs hit his league-leading 16th home run in the loss on Friday, and the junior first baseman is leading the Mountain West Conference in nearly every offensive category.
THE UNLV REBELS: UNLV is being led at the plate by Xavier Scruggs, who is hitting .429 (72-168) with 16 home runs, 54 RBI and 50 runs scored ... For the second time this season Scruggs slugged three home runs in a game, drilling a trio against San Diego State on April 19, as he went 3-for-6 with 8 RBI ... He first did it against Maine on March 1, as he went 5-for-5 with 7 RBI ... He was recently named the MWC Player of the Week on April 21, the third time this season that he has won the award (3/3 & 4/7) ... Jesse Wight is hitting .354 (51-144) and the Rebels have seven regulars hitting .308 or better ... On the mound, reliever Adam Moser is 6-4 with a 3.65 ERA and five saves in 24 appearances out of the bullpen ... Corey Hales is 4-2 with a 4.74 ERA and 35 strikeouts in 14 appearances, 11 of them starts ... This is the fifth year for head coach Buddy Gouldsmith, who currently has a career record of 144-142 (.503), which is the third-most victories in Rebel history.
THE CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE MATADORS: Cal State Northridge enters Tuesday's game having lost five of its last seven games, including a two-of-three at UC Riverside this past weekend ... The Matadors are being paced at the plate by Richard Cates, who is hitting .386 (56-145) with two home runs and 37 RBI ... Overall the Matadors have five regulars hitting .319 or higher and they are hitting .308 as a team ... On the mound the CSN closer Edwin Quirarte is 2-3 with a 1.63 ERA and four saves in 19 total appearances ... CSN head coach Steve Rousey is in his seventh year with the Matadors and he currently has a record of 109-209 (.343).
SERIES HISTORY: UNLV leads the all-time series with CSN by a 22-17 (.688) margin, although the last time the two teams met was the opening of last season, and the Rebels dropped a three-game series to the Matadors in Las Vegas. UNLV won the opener, 10-4, but the lost the next two, 16-7 and 9-4.
