Columnist Ron Kantowski: Schedule is good news, bad news for Rebels

Monday, Feb. 28, 2005 | 9:50 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

So who's next, the 1927 Yankees? The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings? Roy Hobbs and the New York Knights?

Forget TCU, which joins the Mountain West next year. After playing No. 1 Texas and defending NCAA champion and No. 3 Cal State Fullerton in six of its past nine games, the young UNLV baseball team is probably hoping somebody like the Mudville Nine will petition the MWC presidents for immediate admittance.

"Anytime you can play a Texas or a Cal State Fullerton, you find out something about yourself," UNLV chief masochist/head baseball coach Buddy Gouldsmith said after the cream rose to the top again at Wilson Stadium on Sunday afternoon when Fullerton blanked the Rebels 8-0 in the rubber match of a three-game series.

What the Rebels found out is that they are gluttons for punishment. They also may have discovered that despite being young and inexperienced, they aren't that far from becoming a decent team, maybe even a good one in the context of a Mountain West which has so few of those.

Other than Sunday's game, in which Scott Sarver and two Titans relievers blanked the Rebels on four hits, UNLV was competitive in the other five games against the NCAA's aristocrats of the diamond. They lost two one-run games at Texas, rallied to beat Fullerton here on Friday night and led Saturday's game through six innings.

Even Sunday's game was scoreless in the fifth. After the Rebels frittered away a chance to draw first blood when they put runners on second and third with one out in the home fourth, CSF shortstop Blake Davis opened a deep wound with one swing of the Easton. His grand slam off veteran Matt Luca that barely cleared the wall in right field ended any hope the Rebels had of winning the series and instead had them counting moral victories afterward.

At least subconsciously.

"We're not interested in moral victories," Gouldsmith said. "You can't just play 'em (powerhouse teams). You have to beat 'em. We did play well at times but we didn't play well enough (Sunday) to where we could get a break and maybe get back into it.

"When we get into our conference and we can give this kind of effort, then I think we'll start to see some return on it."

After advancing to the NCAA regionals the past two seasons, the Rebels are off to a 2-10 start, which might be alarming if five of those losses weren't against Murderers Row. Three losses at home last weekend to unranked Nevada-Reno are probably a bigger source of concern, but perhaps that series was the equivalent of those sandwich games of which football coaches are so wary. You know, like when they play Vanderbilt between Tennessee and LSU.

But as encouraging as most of the defeats to Texas and Fullerton were, this might be a season where there may be a few more against lesser opponents. I make that assessment based on memory. I was at the regional at Stanford last year and don't remember seeing very many of this year's Rebels there.

Of the eight position players who took the field Sunday, only two, shortstop Zeke Parraz and center fielder Ryan Bird, were regulars last year. And even they played other positions.

"You may not have realized it, but we had seven freshmen on the field at one point," Gouldsmith said.

Unfortunately, they weren't being used as first-base coaches or bullpen catchers or foul-ball shaggers. That might explain why the Rebels were stymied on four hits by a finesse pitcher, failed to put the ball in play during key situations and made baserunning blunders long after key situations ceased to be.

Afterward, I kept looking around for guys like Eric Nielsen or Ryan Ruiz or Brent Johnson, sluggers from last year's team who hit .402, .377 and .359, respectively, and drove in 209 runs between them. Instead, everywhere I turned there were guys who looked more like Engelberg and Ogilvie and Timmy Lupus from the "Bad News Bears."

"Somewhere out there we've got an Eric Nielsen or a Ryan Ruiz or a Brent Johnson," Gouldsmith said. "Those guys were good hitters. But they weren't good hitters as freshmen."

One good thing about playing people like Texas and Cal State Fullerton early is that it tends to make young hitters grow up fast. Maybe in the Longhorns and Titans, these young Rebels bit off a tad more than they could chew.

But at least they survived these six games without anybody choking in the on-deck circle.