Building a winner

Thursday, May 29, 2003 | 10:44 a.m.

Tempe Regional

At Diablo Stadium

Tempe, Ariz.

All Times PDT

Double Elimination

Friday

Game 2 -- New Mexico State (42-16) vs. UNLV (45-15), 1 p.m.

Game 1 -- Central Connecticut State (31-15-2) at Arizona State (50-12), 7 p.m.

Saturday

Game 3 -- Game 1 loser vs. Game 2 loser, 10 a.m.

Game 4 -- Game 1 winner vs. Game 2 winner, 2 p.m.

Game 5 -- Game 3 winner vs. Game 4 loser, 7 p.m.

Sunday

Game 6 -- Game 4 winner vs. Game 5 winner, noon

Game 7 -- Game 4 winner vs. Game 5 winner, 5 p.m., if necessary

The last time UNLV qualified for the NCAA baseball tournament, in 1996, Jim Schlossnagle was in the other dugout.

Schlossnagle was an assistant coach at Tulane, which beat the Rebels 10-7 in a South II region first-round game at Baton Rouge, La.

Afterward, another chance meeting, this one with Rebels coach Fred Dallimore, triggered the chain of events that would culminate with Schlossnagle being named UNLV coach.

"I saw Fred in the stands after our game," Schlossnagle said. "I didn't even know him, but he told me 'When this is over, I'm going to retire.' "

That's what first piqued Schlossnagle's interest in moving to the desert. It didn't happen for five years, as Dallimore's right-hand man Rod Soesbe had first dibs on adding to what his mentor has built.

When that didn't happen, UNLV turned to Schlossnagle, by then considered one of college baseball's best assistant coaches. In just two years, he has guided the Rebels back to the promised land, which in the NCAA baseball atlas almost always includes a layover in Tempe, Ariz., home of tradition-steeped Arizona State.

That's where the 15th-ranked Rebels (45-15) will find themselves this weekend. They'll meet New Mexico State (42-16) in the first round of the NCAA West regional at Tempe's Diablo Stadium at 1 p.m. Friday, with the winner meeting the survivor of Friday's other first-rounder pitting No. 5 Arizona State (50-12) against lightly regarded Central Connecticut State (31-15-2).

The loser? Don't ask. Whoever comes up short in the Aggies-Rebels game will be dumped into the "We Don't Have Enough Pitching" bracket, a k a the loser's bracket, of a double elimination tournament that runs through Sunday.

Schlossnagle's experience at Tulane, which when he left was threatening the likes of Mississippi State and Louisiana State for baseball supremacy in the Deep South, should help him prepare the young Rebels for what lies ahead.

"Sure, I know what to expect," he said. "But I don't get to throw a ball or swing a bat. The challenge for us, just like it is for any first-time team or a team that hasn't been there in a while, is getting over the fact of just being there. But I think we have enough guys, especially guys who have come from other programs, who came to UNLV for this reason."

Such as slugging Pat Dobson, who was named MVP of last week's Mountain West Conference tournament. Dobson could have gone to Clemson but chose UNLV instead, believing that Schlossnagle was putting together a program that could make it to the regional, or even beyond.

"This is why I play baseball, for the excitement of the postseason," Dobson said. "The season is long and tedious and you have to play hard to get through it. But you do it to get to where we are right now. It's exciting."

Dobson, who went 10-for-16 in the MWC tournament and set single game and tournament records for RBIs with 6 and 16, said the Rebels did take a little time out -- with the emphasis on "little" -- to celebrate their conference championship.

"About 10 minutes," Dobson said. "And then we let it go because we're better than that. We set our goals higher than that and we're slowly checking them off the list as we go. But it's a long list."

Schlossnagle said left-handed pitcher Jake Vose (8-4, 5.23 ERA) of Las Vegas' Cimarron High School would get the start against heavy-hitting New Mexico State, ranked among the nation's leaders in home runs. The Aggies' Bill Becher leads the NCAA with 31 homers and 110 RBIs.

NMSU's offensive approach comes as little surprise, given the Aggies are coached by Rocky Ward, whose father Gary was the architect of some fence-busting teams at Oklahoma State during the 1980s featuring major leaguers Robin Ventura and Pete Incaviglia.

"I fully expect to see him down there," Schlossnagle said of Gary Ward, who does much of the fund-raising for his son's program. "They're going to be real similar to his Oklahoma State clubs, which means they are going to be real, real offensive."

Jason Williams (7-5, 5.85) a right-handed pitcher who also started New Mexico State's 2002 NCAA first-round game against Houston, is expected to oppose the Rebels in the regional opener.