Box Score

LAS VEGAS (UNLVRebels.com) - The UNLV baseball team suffered a 16-3 loss to the San Diego State Aztecs in the third and final game of the Mountain West series contested at Earl E. Wilson Stadium Saturday afternoon. The Aztecs (26-11, 13-5 MW) broke the game open with a four-run fourth inning and, eventually, led 14-0 before the Rebels (13-25, 7-11 MW) were able to push across its first run of the game.

Despite the disparity between the team's offensive production, the rubber game began with the feel of a pitchers' duel between UNLV's Garrett Poole (2-4) and SDSU's Dominic Purpura (6-0). The hurlers combined to face one batter over the minimum through two frames of action. Poole only threw to six batters with the first five retired via groundouts while the sixth was a fly out to center field. Purpura, on the other hand, allowed a single to his first batter and then followed with six straight outs.

Things turned in the third when SDSU scattered six hits to jump out to a 4-0 lead. Doubles from Andrew Martinez and Dean Nevarez resulted in the game's first tally; however, the latter attempted to score from second off a single by teammate David Hensley, but was thrown out at the plate. The Aztecs wound up getting an RBI single from Andrew Brown, a two-run home run from Danny Sheehan and an RBI single from Tyler Adkison to cap the output in the inning.

Martinez and Nevarez wound up doing more damage in their next at-bats with back-to-back home runs in the fourth. Additionally, Nevarez started an eight-run fifth with a two-run double that led to a 3-for-4 day with four RBI and two runs.

"I'm disappointed," said head coach Stan Stolte. "I felt we allowed the other team to beat us down, and for the first time this year we tapped out and disrespected the game. Obviously, we didn't pitch very well again, but that's never an excuse to not battle harder than we did today. It's a personal pride issue and we have got to get that cleaned up; it has nothing to do with the result. That will be fixed."

UNLV combined a one-out double from Nick Ames with a two-out triple by Austin Anderson to score its first run. Two more came home in the eighth off a fielder's choice put in play by Payton Squier and an RBI double from Cooper Esmay.

Adkison managed to bring home two off a home run in the ninth to conclude the day's scoring.

Purpura allowed one run off of five hits with four strikeouts and one walk en route to earning the win in 7.0 innings of work. Jacob Erickson and CJ Saylor tossed the eighth and ninth, respectively, although the former was touched for two runs off of three hits.

Poole was saddled with the loss after he gave up six runs off of nine hits and two walks in 3.0 innings. Andrew Schultz, Blaze Bohall, Bryan Menendez and Connor Clark also pitched in the contest for UNLV.

The Rebels are back at Wilson Stadium Tuesday night for a 6:05 pm tilt with the Arizona State Sun Devils. The game has been billed as "$2 Tuesday" with tickets and hot dogs specially priced at $2 apiece while beer will be discounted by $2.

NOTES: Ernie De La Trinidad extended his reached-base streak to 31 games -- the longest since Joey Armstrong's run of 36 straight during the 2015 campaign ... Cody Howard and Anderson extended their hitting streaks to seven and five games, respectively.