UNLV falls to Lewis-Clark in rain-shortened contest

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, Feb. 17, 2000 | 10:42 a.m.

Before departing on a tough weekend road trip to Southern California, Rod Soesbe's young and struggling UNLV baseball team certainly could have used a win Wednesday afternoon against Lewis-Clark State.

And if not for one bad inning, not to mention an unexpected jolt from Mother Nature, they might have gotten one.

But after lightning and rain held up the game for 42 minutes, the contest was called after 6 1/2 innings, enabling the visiting Warriors (4-1) to hold on for a 6-5 victory before 234 fans at Earl E. Wilson Stadium.

The loss dropped the Rebels, who started five freshmen in the game, to 3-7. And things don't get any easier as UNLV begins a three-game series at No. 5-ranked Cal State Fullerton on Friday night and stops by No. 9 USC on Monday afternoon for a single game.

Talk about baptism by fire. The prospect of a 3-11 record is a very real one for the Rebels.

"It's going to be a tough trip, but I think our kids will step up," Soesbe said. "It will be a very good experience for them to play teams of the caliber of Cal State Fullerton and USC on the road and should pay off for us down the line. Hopefully we can get through it and keep our heads above water and not lose our confidence."

UNLV, behind an RBI single by leftfielder Adam Manley and RBI double by first baseman Tony DeMarco, jumped out to a 3-0 lead after three innings on Wednesday.

But Lewis-Clark rallied for five runs (three unearned) in the fourth off Rebels' starter Giovanni Pupo, taking advantage of a key error by third baseman Brad Maloff.

UNLV came back to tie the game, 5-5, with a sacrifice fly by DeMarco and another RBI single by Manley in the bottom of the fifth. But the Warriors went back ahead, 6-5, on Matt Hellman's RBI groundout in the sixth.

An inning later, the umpires decided to suspend the game when lightning began to light up the sky around the stadium. A few minutes later, it started raining heavily and the game eventually was called.

"It would have been nice if we could have gotten back out there again," Soesbe said. "It was a good ballgame. We just had one bad inning and it came back to haunt us."