Rough weekend leaves Rebels out of WAC tourney

Monday, May 11, 1998 | 8:48 a.m.

It may be hard to tell from the final standings -- and may come as little consolation to Rebels fans -- but the UNLV baseball team made strides this season despite failing to qualify for the Western Athletic Conference tournament.

"We made a lot of improvements," Rebels head coach Rod Soesbe said. "We've still got some spots we need to improve on to get better for next year. But the thing is, we had a chance to come down on the weekend and take care of it -- we were still playing for something on the weekend where a year ago we weren't."

UNLV was in the running for the sixth and final berth in the postseason conference tournament going into last weekend's three-game series at New Mexico. After battling back from a 6-0 deficit in Friday's opener, the Rebels dropped a 12-11 decision Saturday and were eliminated from playoff contention with a 16-8 loss Sunday.

"We swung the bat well all weekend and came from behind to win that one on Friday," Soesbe said. "All three games, we gave up runs real early. The kids played hard, we were just not getting the pitching ... and it's just tough when you're playing catch-up all the time."

After jumping out to a 21-8 start this season, the Rebels lost 16 of their final 26 games (including 15 of 24 in the conference) to finish with a 31-24 mark (13-17 in the WAC).

While UNLV's late-season swoon mirrored last year's collapse, it was injuries to their top two starting pitchers that took their toll on the Rebels in 1998. First, junior right-hander Bryan Gidge went down with an arm injury, then junior right-hander Mike Zipser succumbed to a back ailment.

Gidge was 2-1 in his first three starts and never did come back; Zipser was 5-1 when he went down, missed six weeks and never regained the form he displayed in the first two months of the season.

"Those two pitchers going down made a big difference, it really did," Soesbe said. "If we get even two wins out of those starts they missed, we're in good shape. Then we got in a situation where we were going with our (third, fourth and fifth) pitchers against people's (first, second and third) guys."

Despite the injury trouble, the Rebels shaved nearly a full run off their staff earned-run average from a year ago (7.43 to 6.53). But Soesbe said he will attempt to shore up the pitching staff next season with the addition of a couple of junior-college pitchers.

Soesbe can take comfort in the fact that he will lose only one player -- pitcher Jerimiah Tipton -- to graduation and will return the bulk of an offense that hit .333 and averaged more than eight runs a game.

Leading the list of returnees will be first baseman Tony DeMarco (.422, 8 home runs, 47 RBIs), outfielder Ryan Ludwick (.352, 14 homers, 57 RBIs) and catcher Ryan Hamill (.338, 16 homers, 46 RBIs).

The biggest task Soesbe faces next year will be to replace third baseman Kevin Eberwein and catcher Sean Campbell -- two juniors he expects to lose in next month's Major League Baseball draft. Eberwein hit .377 with 24 doubles, 16 home runs and 52 RBIs and Campbell hit .310 with 10 homers and 39 RBIs.

"We had some good signings early but we really need a JC kid or two to bolster (the pitching staff) a little bit," Soesbe said. "We know we're probably going to lose Eberwein and probably Campbell to the draft. But other than that we should have everybody back."