Box Score

RENO, Nev. (UNLVRebels.com) - The UNLV baseball team (24-30 overall, 14-16 Mountain West) surrendered nine unanswered runs to the Nevada, Reno Wolf Pack (33-22, 20-10 MW) in Saturday's 9-7 defeat at Peccole Park. The Rebels scored the game's first two runs and the final five; however, the Wolf Pack's outburst, which occurred between the third and fifth and included back-to-back four-run innings â€" fourth and fifth, was too much to overcome.

By virtue of its fourth-place finish in Conference play, the Scarlet & Gray will be the No. 4 seed at next week's Mountain West Baseball Championship. UNLV will meet the No. 5 Air Force Falcons â€" a team the Rebels swept in mid-April â€" at 3:00 pm MT (2:00 pm PT) Wednesday afternoon. Prior to that affair, No. 6 San Diego State and No. 7 San Jose State will square off in a "play-in" game (11:00 am MT/10:00 am PT) with the winner advancing to face No. 3 UNR Wednesday evening (7:00 pm MT/6:00 pm PT). Fresno State and New Mexico are seeded first and second, respectively, and both will have Wednesday off before playing their first games Thursday.

Cooper Esmay smashed a pair of home runs, knocked in four RBI and scored three runs to pace the Scarlet & Gray's offense Saturday. Besides Esmay's efforts, the Rebels also got three hits and one run from Payton Squier, two hits and a run from Justin Jones and two RBI from Nick Ames.

The Rebels and Ames got things started with a two-run single that brought home Andrew Yazdanbakhsh and Esmay. The runners had reached safely off a single by Yazdanbakhsh and a walk to Esmay.

"We fought brutally cold weather, some guys had food poisoning, but we fought hard until the final out," said head coach Stan Stolte. "I was proud of them from that standpoint. We still have to make plays when the game puts us in the position to do so. Cooper had a great day for us and gave us a chance to steal one today, but we just came up short."

UNR began to get its offense started one inning later when T.J. Friedl singled home Keaton Smith from second after he had reached base safely with a hit of his own. That one-run tally sparked consecutive four-run frames.

All nine of the Wolf Pack's runs were scored between its cleanup and eighth hitters in the lineup. Smith, who was batting eighth, scored twice as did Cole Krzmarzick (five), Bryce Greager (six) and Jordan Pearce (seven) while Trenton Brooks, who was in the four hole, touched home plate once.

Three of those five players were also responsible for five of the team's nine runs, as Pearce and Smith knocked in two apiece and Greager added one RBI. The rest of the scoring came from Freidl, who added a two-run triple to go with his RBI single in the third, and a fourth-inning sacrifice fly from Justin Hazard.

After its offense had been held scoreless for three innings, UNLV got back on the scoreboard with Esmay solo homer in the sixth. He pulled the Rebels within three in the eighth with his three-run blast over the fence in left-center field. Squier (single) and Jones (single) scored on the round tripper.

A.J. VanMeetren and Cody Howard teamed up to add one more run in the eighth. The former followed Esmay's at-bat with a double, took third off a wild pitch and scored when the latter grounded into a fielder's choice.

Brooks (5-5) picked up the win for the Wolf Pack after throwing six innings and allowing three runs off of seven hits. He struck out three, but walked two.

Mark Nowaczewski earned the save for UNR in 1.2 innings of relief. Nowaczewski walked one and surrendered one hit to preserve the win after he relieved Alex Lott who had allowed four runs off of four hits in 0.1 innings.

Kremer (4-5) was handed the loss in 4.1 innings of work. He was touched for eight runs off of 10 hits and two walks. Blaze Bohall, Corey Wilson, Christian Myers and Ben Wright followed out of the bullpen and combined to allow one run off of four hits in 3.2 relief frames.

With its win today, UNR claimed the three points associated with the sport towards the standings of the 2015-16 Governor's Series presented by NV Energy and Barrick Gold. UNLV has already sewn up its fourth straight victory in the head-to-head all-encompassing athletic and academic challenge between itself and the Wolf Pack. To date, the score sits 28.5 to 19.5 in favor of the Scarlet & Gray.