May 21, 2014
UNLV Game Notes - MW Championship 
LAS VEGAS (UNLVRebels.com) - UNLV baseball (33-21/20-10 Mountain West) begins postseason play at the Mountain West Championship, which will be played at Earl E. Wilson Stadium. The Rebels' earned the No. 1 seed in the tournament after winning all three games against Nevada, Reno and after New Mexico dropped one game to Air Force, causing a tie at the top of the MW standings. UNLV won five of six games against UNM, giving the Rebels the tiebreaker, but both teams were named co-conference regular season champions. UNLV will receive a first-round bye and will open MW Championship play on Thursday at 7:00 p.m. The Rebels will play the highest remaining seed of No. 4 UNR, No. 5 Fresno State, No. 6 Air Force or No. 7 San Jose State, who will all play on Wednesday. Fans can watch the action live on UNLVRebels.com, thanks to the Mountain West Network, or can listen to Dug Dugless and Josh Towers' call on ESPN 1100 AM/98.9 FM.
SCOUTING THE REBELS
UNLV baseball (33-21/20-10 Mountain West) begins postseason play at the Mountain West Championship, which will be played at Earl E. Wilson Stadium. The Rebels' earned the No. 1 seed in the tournament after winning all three games against Nevada, Reno and after New Mexico dropped one game to Air Force, causing a tie at the top of the MW standings. UNLV won five of six games against UNM, giving the Rebels the tiebreaker, but both teams were named co-conference regular season champions. UNLV will receive a first-round bye and will open MW Championship play on Thursday at 7:00 p.m. The Rebels will play the highest remaining seed of No. 4 UNR, No. 5 Fresno State, No. 6 Air Force or No. 7 San Jose State, who will all play on Wednesday. UNLV most recently dropped a midweek game to Arizona State 9-5 last Tuesday, but bounced back to sweep its rival, Nevada, Reno, over the weekend. The Rebels beat the Wolf Pack 8-1 on Thursday night, 17-9 on Friday night and completed the sweep with a 4-2 victory on Saturday. From the mound, Erick Fedde (8-2, 1.76 ERA) has led the Rebels this season, but he will have to undergo Tommy John surgery, which will end his season. He finished with 82 strikeouts in 76.2 innings of work and opponents hit .209 against him this year. John Richy (10-3, 2.82 ERA) picked up his 10th win of the year against UNR and now leads the conference in wins. Richy ranks second in the MW with 93 strikeouts in a conference-high 106.0 innings of work. He also leads the Rebels with five complete games in 2014. Bryan Bonnell (6-5, 3.03 ERA) has struck out 39 batters this season and has walked 17 in 101.0 innings of work. Kenny Oakley (4-6, 3.22 ERA) earned the Mountain West Pitcher of the Week honors last week after tossing 8.0 shutout innings against UNR. He has struck out 73 batters in 86.1 innings of work this season and has made 16 appearances, 12 of which have been starts. Brayden Torres (1-1, 2.42 ERA) leads the team with seven saves and has struck out 31 in 26.0 innings of work. From the plate the Rebels are led by Morgan Stotts (.349), Patrick Armstrong (.317), T.J. White (.313), Joey Swanner (.307) and Joey Armstrong (.302) and Edgar Montes (.300). A.J. Hernandez, who was named the Mountain West Player of the Week after his performance against UNR, is also hitting .316 this season. Pat Armstrong leads the team with six home runs and has driven in a team-high 43 runs. White leads the team with 17 stolen bases and has scored a team-high 43 runs. Joey Armstrong has drawn a team-high 28 walks and has stolen seven bases, which is tied with VanMeetren for the second most on the team. Edgar Montes recorded seven outfield assists this season to lead all Rebel outfielders. As a team, UNLV is hitting .294 this season and has recorded 17 outfield assists.
SCOUTING THE MOUNTAIN WEST CHAMPIONSHIP
For the second time in three years, UNLV will serve as the host of the Mountain West Championship. The Rebels will be the No. 1 seed in the tournament for the third time in school history and UNLV is only the second school to host the MW Championship as the No. 1 seed. It has happened two other times when TCU hosted the tournament and won the regular season in 2008 and 2009. UNLV and No. 2 New Mexico each earned an opening round bye in the tournament. No. 3 San Diego State will play the winner of the "play-in game" between No. 6 Air Force and No. 7 San Jose State. No. 4 Nevada, Reno will play No. 5 Fresno State to end the action on Wednesday. The lowest remaining seed that won will play New Mexico on Thursday at 3:00 p.m. while the highest remaining seed that won will play UNLV on Thursday at 7:00 p.m. PT. Other than the play-in game, the tournament is double elimination.
UNLV'S MW TOURNAMENT HISTORY
This is UNLV's 15th appearance in the Mountain West Tournament and the Rebels own a 23-23 record in those games. UNLV has won three tournament titles in 2003, 2004 and 2005. Last year the Rebels went 1-2 in the tournament, which was played in Fresno, Calif.
ON DECK
If UNLV wins the Mountain West Championship, the Rebels will earn an automatic bid into the NCAA Baseball Tournament. If UNLV does not earn the automatic bid, the Rebels will rely on their season resume to earn an at-large bid, which a committee will determine all of the at-large bids. The NCAA will unveil its tournament field on Monday, May 26 at 9:00 a.m. PT on ESPNU.
REGULAR SEASON CHAMPIONS
UNLV won its third Mountain West regular season championship after earning a share of the 2014 regular season championship. The Rebels entered the weekend one-game back of New Mexico, but a 3-1 victory by Air Force on Friday created a tie atop the MW standings. Both the Lobos and the Rebels won their respective series finales, giving the two schools a 20-10 MW record and splitting the conference regular season title.
#PROTECTEARL
UNLV baseball owns a 21-3 home record, which gives the Rebels a winning percentage of 87.5 at Earl E. Wilson Stadium this season. The team got off to a school-record 11-0 start to the season, which is the best start on Roger Barnson Memorial Field at Earl E. Wilson Stadium, before the Rebels suffered their first home loss of the year to San Diego State. The team then rattled off four more wins before dropping its second home contest of the year to San Jose State. UNLV's final loss of the year at home was against Arizona State. Notable home wins include a walk-off home run against UC Riverside, a 4-3 win over West Virginia, a three-game sweep of No. 24 New Mexico and a three-game sweep of rival Nevada, Reno. It is the first time since 1998 that the Rebels swept the Wolf Pack at home. If the season ended today, the 2014 squad would own the best winning percentage at Wilson Stadium in school history. The top-five winning percentages are:
YEAR RECORD WINNING %
2014 21-3 87.5
1996 34-6 85.0
2003 25-5 83.3
1980 44-8-1 83.0
1979 32-7 82.0
