ALAMOSA, Colo. — Colorado Mesa ended the baseball regular season on a sour note Saturday, falling 14-10 to Adams State the day after scoring 60 runs in a doubleheader sweep.
The teams split the four-game series, combining to score 141 runs — 86 by Colorado Mesa.
The No. 11 Mavericks (34-16, 24-7 RMAC) are the No. 1 seed and host team in the six-team RMAC Tournament, which begins at 11 a.m. Wednesday, May 8, at The Diamond at Bus Bergman Sports Complex. Colorado Mesa will face No. 6 seed CSU Pueblo in the second game of the day at 3 p.m. The rivals split a four-game series at The Diamond last month.
Adams State (24-26, 19-13) is one of four teams that entered the final day of the regular season jockeying for the 2-5 seeds. The conference office will announce pairings after play concludes and all ties have been settled. The third game Wednesday is set for 7 p.m.
Tickets are available on the tournament page at rmacsports.org.
Despite a pair of home runs by Jonathan Gonzalez, his eighth and ninth of the season, and another from Braden Winget, the Mavericks' pitching staff couldn't come up with any shutdown innings early. Adams State scored in each of the first six innings, putting up five runs in the fourth and four more in the fifth to take command.
Starter Jordan Pace (1-2) was touched for seven runs, being replaced in the fourth by Cade Nicol after three straight hits, including back-to-back doubles, and a walk broke a 3-3 tie and put the Grizzlies up 5-3.
Nicol gave up an RBI double and a two-run single. He was lifted after a balk, with Tristan Wolf getting the Mavs out of the inning with a strikeout, but down five runs.
Winget hit his fourth home run of the series and seventh of the season in the fifth to get the Mavs back in the game at 8-5. Gonzalez, who drove in 13 runs on the weekend, added an RBI single to cut it to 8-6.
Wolf, though, gave up two home runs and a double in the fifth to put CMU in a 12-6 hole. The closest CMU got was 12-9 when Kolby Felix singled home one run and TJ Rheem drove the ball down the right-field line for what appeared to be a three-run triple that would have made it a two-run game. However, the ball rolled into CMU's bullpen for a ground-rule double, sending Robert Sharrar back to third and Rheem back to second. Gonzalez popped out to end the Mavs' final real threat.
Five CMU pitchers combined to strike out nine and walk only one, but allowed six home runs.
Gonzalez had three hits, including the two home runs, and drove in three runs. Sharrar, Winget and Rheem drove in two runs each, and Rheem and Felix each had three hits.
