Wednesday, June 1, 2022

Memorial Day Weekend 2022 Part 2


Part 1

5-28-22 WAC Championship Game

I write fiction now.  Just fiction.  Here we go.  The New Mexico State Baseball team are the 2022 WAC Champions.  Whoa there, J!  That’s too much of a suspension of disbelief.  We’re veering right into High Fantasy.  So this team that basically only got into the tournament because a couple of teams ahead of them were ineligible has won the championship.  Ron even wished GCU “Good luck,” in the tournament, convinced the Aggies wouldn’t be there.   

 

And yet while listening to the game, it felt inevitable.  NM State’s surprise opponent was Abilene Christian, another #4 seed, but a definitely better team.  They got into the championship game the hard way.  They lost to #25 GCU in the first round.  They had to play twice on Friday, including a late night walk off win against GCU.  Because of the weird tournament format, ACU had to beat GCU again on Saturday afternoon in an elimination game, which they did resoundingly.  By contrast, the Aggies had played the minimum number of games.

 

I wouldn’t necessarily say that ACU was tired, but 4 errors and a parade of ineffective pitchers betrayed them.  Clearly, that wasn’t the kind of play that got them to this point in the tournament.  Pablo Cortes and Ian Mejia combined for five innings of 1-run ball.  Offensively, Nolan Funke led the way with a solo home run in the second and Cal Killgore, who caught all four games in the tournament, drove in another that inning.  The Aggies scored 3 more in the fourth and another run the sixth.  Alex Bustamonte gritted through the final three innings for a save.  Adam Young, calling the game on the radio, was losing his voice as he announced the 7-1 Aggie win for the championship.  

 

You only really need to know two Aggie stats about this tournament.  They never trailed and they only gave up 5 total runs in four games.  They dominated.  Speaking of domination, Cal Villareal was the tournament MVP.  Cal went 4 for 5 today and 11 for 17 overall, but really didn’t deserve the award since they were obviously pitching him underhand.  Cortes, Mejia, Tommy Tabak, and Funke, the only player to hit 2 home runs in the tournament, were also recognized on the All-Tournament team. 

 

Their bus broke down twice on the way to Mesa.  I found that out from the TV highlights.  I’m still wondering what happened to Brandon Dieter.  Villareal taking over his leadoff spot worked out well.  The team did have plenty of family and fans there to celebrate with.  I heard some fireworks going off outside.  Maybe somebody here was celebrating the victory, too.  If I could have seen the future, I would have wanted to have been there, but Ron has been out sick this week, so it wasn’t going to happen for me.  On to the NCAA Tournament.  Nobody knows where or when yet.  The selection committee is doing some serious erasing right now on their brackets after this result.      

 

Obviously, this is going to be the highlight of this Memorial Day Sports Weekend for me.  Earlier this Saturday, I continued the tradition of going to McAlister’s for a BLT+ Avocado.  (From rereading some previous years’ entries, I discovered I’d been doing this for a couple of years without realizing it.)  I also had an unfruitful shopping trip at Barnes & Noble, as I walked off the surprisingly filling sandwich. 

 

While the Aggie game was going on, I pretty much ignored an MLB game on FOX between the Dodgers and Diamondbacks, and missed tonight’s Chihuahuas game.  I did check out a Mexican League ball game on a Juarez station.  The teams looked like a bunch of NASCAR drivers with all of the advertising on their uniforms.  There also seemed to be a bunch of American players on those teams.  I saw the weirdest ground rule double, where a ball got stuck in the wire fence protecting the scoreboard.  After the MLB game was over, I randomly ran into Evil Dead 2 on This movie channel, which I hadn’t seen before.  I had sound off, but still enjoyed the most wacky horror movie I’ve ever seen.




I still can’t believe the Aggie Baseball team won the WAC Championship (even with photographic evidence, unless this is an elaborate photoshop).  At some point, it’ll hit me and I’ll celebrate.  Part of me does wonder, What if the Aggies had run into the GCU during the tournament.  There’s too many variables to consider, but in spite of the 1-6 record against the Lopes, the Aggies did play them hard every time.  The confidence the Aggies had coming into the tournament might have been the difference in a rematch.       

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