Air Force ends Rebels’ season

Victoria Sun

Friday, May 19, 2000 | 10:07 a.m.

This wasn't the way UNLV's Nate Kaup wanted his career to end.

Not to Air Force, not this way.

Kaup and his teammates felt they worked too hard to overcome a 7-25 start by winning 17 of their last 23 regular season games only to lose to the Falcons in Game 4 of Mountain West Conference Baseball Tournament.

But they did.

Josh Phifer's two-run homer in the eighth inning off UNLV reliever Luke Anderson lifted the Falcons to a 13-11 victory Thursday at Earl E. Wilson stadium, putting an end to UNLV's season. It was Phifer's third home run of the year.

"No one really expected a lot of us," Phifer said. "We wanted to prove to everybody we can play baseball and we belong out here.

"I'm happy for the seniors, they get another chance to play. We don't get scholarships at Air Force, but we just like to play baseball."

Anderson (3-4) took the loss while Kiwedin Cornell (1-2) pitched two hitless innings of relief for the win.

Phifer's blast left the Rebels as stunned as they were the previous day when they surrendered a 6-2 lead to San Diego State and ended up with a one-run loss in their first game of the tournament.

Kaup said it was difficult to put the loss to the Aztecs behind them.

"I think we wanted to be back out here and take a little bit of our aggression out on Air Force," said Kaup, a senior who went 4-for-5 with three runs scored. "It didn't seem like we could get anything going and Air Force came ready to battle."

The loss dropped UNLV to 24-33 for the year and improved Air Force to 22-33.

"We started off with really high hopes this season," Kaup added. "It is very, very disappointing to finish up like this.

"It was definitely a quiet ending. Seeing the guys when it was over, I don't think they knew what to do."

Rebels starting pitcher Justin Fairbanks gave up five hits and six runs in 1 1/3 innings before being relieved by C.J. Martin, who allowed five hits and four runs in 2 2/3.

A two-run Rebels' eighth inning tied the game 11-11. UNLV's John Cruz scored when Cornell walked Trent Kitsch, and Kaup scored the second run on Denny Seybert's groundout. Cruz reached first when he was hit by a pitch -- his school-record 18th HBP.

"It's been a rough season," UNLV coach Rod Soesbe said. "We had chances, but we couldn't get out of long innings without getting hurt."

In other action, Utah defeated top-seeded New Mexico 6-4 and San Diego State remained the only unbeaten team with a 6-5 win over BYU.