Bradey Shipley and Tom Jameson.

“When we’ve had some of our better teams, we’ve had two guys like that at the top of our pitching staff,” Wolf Pack coach Gary Powers said.

The Wolf Pack, though, hasn’t had a dynamic duo one-two punch on the mound like Shipley and Jameson since it started playing Division I baseball four decades ago.

Shipley is first in the Western Athletic Conference with a 2.08 earned run average. Jameson is right behind him in second place at 2.13. Shipley is 8-3 this year in 13 starts while Jameson is 7-2 in 13 starts. The Wolf Pack is 17-9 in their 26 starts combined.

“It’s been a great season,” said Shipley after his complete-game 4-1 victory over the San Jose State Spartans last Friday night at Peccole Park. “I’ve matured a great deal this year.”

“It’s definitely been a good year,” said Jameson after he went 8.2 innings the next day to beat the Spartans 5-4. “A lot of hard work has gone into it.”

Shipley and Jameson are 15-5 combined for a winning percentage of .750. The last Pack pitching duo with at least 15 wins combined and a winning percentage of at least .750 was Darrell Rasner (14-2) and Chad Qualls (11-4) who were 25-6 combined (.806). Since joining the WAC in 2001, the Pack has had just four other pitching combos with 15 or more wins in a season. Mateo Miramontes won 10 and Rasner won eight in 2001, Miramontes won nine and Justin Sherman won eight in 2003, and Ryan Rodriguez (11 wins) combined with both Tim Schoeninger (5) and Chris Scott (4) in 2005.

Shipley and Jameson have clearly stepped into elite company in Pack pitching history this year.

No Wolf Pack pitcher with at least 10 starts in a season has ever finished the year with an earned run average under 2.93 (Rod Nettnin, 1990) in Powers’ 30 seasons as head coach.

And this year there might be two.

“They have both been awesome,” pitching coach Pat Flury said this week before the Pack left to open a three-game series at Hawaii on Thursday night. “I’ve been so blessed to have both of them.”

Put their names together (Tom Bradey) and they sound like a Super Bowl-winning quarterback. Judge them separately and, well, they are the two biggest reasons why the Wolf Pack feels it has a legitimate chance to return to the NCAA Regionals for the first time in a dozen years.

Jameson has pitched six or more innings in nine of his last 11 starts and has allowed three or fewer earned runs in 10 of his 13 outings. Since Feb. 26 his record has been 7-1.

Shipley has pitched six or more innings in nine of his last 10 starts and has allowed three or fewer earned runs in all but one of his 13 outings. Two of his three losses this year were by scores of 2-0 and 2-1.

Although they perform their magic separately on the mound, it’s almost as if they’ve worked together all season long.

The Pack has played 13 three-game series this year and has never lost in both Shipley’s and Jameson’s starts on the same weekend. Shipley has opened the Pack’s three-game weekend series and Jameson, until recently, has pitched the third and final game of the series.

“Bradey has done a great job of setting the tone for us all year and Tom has been great at stabilizing series for us,” Powers said.

Powers, though, has recently moved Jameson to the No. 2 starter’s role in order to set up his rotation for next week‘s WAC Tournament.

“You don’t want to risk the possibility of being eliminated in the tournament in two games without having used one of your two main guys,” Powers said.

The success of both Shipley and Jameson this year has not been a total surprise.

“I expected to have a good year but not this good,” Jameson smiled.

The 6-foot-7 Jameson, after all, is in his third year as a Pack starter after going 12-7 combined his first two years. His breakout game took place his freshman year when he allowed just one hit in eight innings in a 3-1 win over Louisiana Tech in the WAC Tournament.

“I knew I had to keep working this year on the little things to get better,” said Jameson, whose father Rich owns the Pack record for career complete games (17). “I had to fine-tune things a little. But other than that I’m the same guy I’ve always been. I pretty much do the same things that I’ve done since my freshman year.”

The biggest thing Jameson has done this year is consistently take advantage of his 6-foot-7 body. At times he can look to opposing hitters like he’s throwing down from the summit of Mt. Rose.

“He’s been much more consistent this year,” Powers said. “When he’s throwing on a downward plane, his ball sinks and he gets a lot of ground balls. In the past he had a tendency to throw standing up too much and his stuff would flatten out.”

Jameson is not a strikeout pitcher by any stretch of the imagination. He’s fanned just 103 hitters in 233.2 career innings and just 32 in 84.1 innings this year. In fact, most of his strikeouts come when he simply surprises hitters or gets a friendly call from the umpires. Ten of his 32 strikeouts this year, for example, have been when the hitter never took the bat off his shoulders.

“That’s not me,“ Jameson said. “I am not a strikeout guy. I’m a ‘Here-it-comes, go-ahead-and-hit-it-and-let’s-see-what-happens’ kind of guy.”

When Jameson is at his best, which is often, opponents are pounding the ball into the ground. His 14.6 outs per nine innings is second best on the team behind Troy Marks’ 15.4.

“He’s come a long way as a pitcher,” Powers said. “He’s matured a great deal.”

That maturity was put to the test this past Saturday against San Jose State. Jameson struggled through the first two innings, allowing four runs on seven hits. The past two seasons that would have meant an early exit for the big right-hander.

“I thought I’d be gone by the fourth inning,” Jameson said.

Powers, though, gave Jameson the opportunity to find his rhythm. And Jameson was still on the mound with two outs in the ninth inning despite allowing 13 hits as the Pack came away with a 5-4 victory.

“I have a lot of faith in him,” Powers said. “He’s not the same guy he was the last two years.”

Shipley has hit the ground running as a starting pitcher. The sophomore right-hander was the Pack’s starting shortstop last year as a freshman. Powers and Flury, though, didn’t hesitate to throw the talented 6-foot-2, 170-pounder right into the rotation at the start of the year.

“He has a world of talent,” Flury said.

And a world of confidence. He went into Powers’ office last winter and asked to be the team’s No. 1 starter. Powers fell in love with Shipley’s confidence and attitude right then and there.

“That showed me he was a competitor,” Powers said.

That over-the-top competitiveness did get him into a bit of trouble this year at times.

“I had to battle through a few things this year but that’s what baseball is all about,” Shipley said. “It’s about grinding through things.”

One of the things he had to battle through was a hyper personality.

“I’d get upset when the team wasn’t scoring runs for me or when a play wasn‘t made behind me,” Shipley said. “I’d let people see I was upset. I had to learn how to not let that stuff bother me, to not show that.
That was a problem for me because I was letting it affect my performance on the mound.”

It took Shipley less than one full season of pitching at the Division I level to become one of the better college pitchers on the west coast. Shipley, unlike Jameson, is a strikeout pitcher, having fanned 67 in 82.1 innings. He’s also allowed just one home run (Jameson has given up just two) all season and opponents are hitting a mere .217 against him (Jameson’s opponents are hitting .278).

“Mentally, I’ve grown so much as the year has gone along,” Shipley said. “I think I’ve made tremendous strides in my maturity and my mental toughness.”

The mental side of the game is where Flury, a veteran pitcher of 13 seasons and over 500 games in the minor leagues, comes in.

“He has been great working with us on the mental side of the game,” Shipley said. “He’s toughened us all up a little bit. He’s also helped us with the physical part and our mechanics but he’s been great teaching us about what to expect and how to handle things. The mental part is a big part of pitching.”

“He’s been great in helping me fix all the little things I needed to work on,” said Jameson of Flury. “And he helps us with the mental part. He’s helped me become more mature as a pitcher.”

Flury, an unpaid volunteer assistant, is in his second season as the Pack’s pitching coach. Under his guidance, the Wolf Pack has a team ERA of 3.99 this year, it’s best since 1992 (3.38).

“I’ve helped them understand why we try to keep the ball down and pound the strike zone,” Flury said. “And they just took it and ran with it. When you have success like we have, the players have to buy into what you are teaching them. And those guys have done that.”

Jameson’s ERA is down from 4.84 a year ago.

“With Tommy, he’s really learned how to deal with adversity this year,” Flury said. “He’s developed a strong confidence.”

“With Bradey, it was about getting him to become more consistent in the strike zone. He had a tendency to run his pitch count up quickly and we couldn’t stretch him out. But now he’s pounding the zone and he’s able to pitch deep in games.”

Flury said he had to teach Shipley how to remain calm during games when things around him might not be going as planned.

“That’s part of his maturity,” Flury said. “Remember, he’s a just a sophomore and as a pitcher he’s really just a freshman. He’s experiencing things for the first time.”

With Shipley and Jameson, the Pack is also experiencing a feeling of confidence heading into the postseason that they haven’t experienced in a long time.

“You need two pitchers like that if you want a chance to be successful in a tournament,” Powers said. “I wish I had three.”

“We control our own destiny,” Pack relief pitcher Matt Gardner said. “It’s awesome.”

The Wolf Pack needs to win just one of three games starting Thursday night in Honolulu against the Hawaii Rainbows to clinch a share of their first-ever WAC regular season championship. The Wolf Pack currently leads the WAC at 10-5 followed by Sacramento State (11-7), Hawaii and New Mexico State (both 8-7), Louisiana Tech and Fresno State (both 6-9) and San Jose State (5-10).

“We can still accomplish everything we set out to do at the beginning of the year,” Gardner said. “We can win the WAC, win the tournament and go to a regional. There were some moments this year when we kind of asked ourselves, ‘Are we ever going to get there?’ But we battled through all that and here we are.”

Two victories at Hawaii will give the Pack the WAC regular season title all by themselves (Sacramento State owns the tiebreaker against the Pack) and the No. 1 seed in next week’s conference tournament (May 23-27) in Mesa, Ariz.

“Winning the championship will get us back to where we once were and where we always want to be,” said Wolf Pack coach Gary Powers, who last coached a regular season conference champion in 2000 in the Big West Conference.

The Pack joined the WAC the following year and haven’t won a league crown since. They did come close three times, losing all three times to Fresno State (two games back in 2007, three games back in 2008 and just 1.5 games out in 2010).

When asked if he ever thought it would take a dozen years to win a WAC title, Pack coach Gary Powers said, ‘Who knows? Baseball is a very cyclical sport. When we were real good in the 1990s, Fresno State couldn’t play with us. But they’ve had a nice run lately. But we’re still right there with them, competing for championships. When Rice was winning the league (in the early 200s), we were right there with them, too. We’ve been competitive for the most part but we just haven’t won it.”

Powers and the Wolf Pack (30-21), which will join the Mountain West Conference next year, are more than ready to leave the WAC this year with a title.

“Do you think the last 10 or 12 years have been satisfying to any of us? Of course not. We’ve had some nice moments and some good years but it hasn’t been satisfying overall. But this sport is a grind. You have to stay with it and keep battling. And that’s what we’ve done and that’s why we are in the position we are in right now because we kept batting.”

The Wolf Pack heads to Hawaii with a five-game winning streak. They have also won 10 of their last 13 games and 14 of their last 19. They have, however, lost two of three games in each of their last three road series at Seattle (May 5-7), Sacramento State (April 20-22) and New Mexico State (April 5-7) and have not won a series on the road since they won two of three at UNLV on March 2-4.

None of that matters, though, starting Thursday.

“We’re clicking at the right time,” said Gardner, who has set the Pack’s single-season saves record this year at 12. “The thing that makes us a good team is the passion everyone on this team has for the game. It’s unreal. We’re all pulling for each other. And we’re going to give our best effort everyday and leave everything we have out on the field. That’s how we’ve won.”

Winning at Hawaii, though, is never easy. The Rainbows are 24-11 at Les Murakami Stadium this year and are 13-5 against the Pack in Honolulu since 2004. The Pack, though, did sweep a three-game series in Hawaii in 2003 behind future major leaguers Brett Hayes and Kevin Kouzmanoff, starting pitchers Mateo Miramontes, Eddie Bonine and Justin Sherman and closer Zac Basch.

The Wolf Pack, though, might be catching Hawaii at the right time. The Rainbows were swept in a three-game series last weekend at Sacramento State and they will be without their No. 1 starter, Matt Sisto (8-3, 3.03 earned run average), who is nursing a groin injury.

Jarrett Arakawa, a 6-foot, 185-pound left-hander, is scheduled to start for Hawaii in Sisto’s old role as the team’s No.1 starter on Thursday. The Pack beat Arakawa last year at Peccole Park, 10-0. It was the only game of the four-game series the Pack won.

Bradey Shipley (8-3, 2.08) will be on the mound for the Pack against Arakawa on Thursday. The Pack’s Tom Jameson (7-2, 2.13) will face Hawaii’s Scott Squier (3-4, 3.39) on Friday. Jameson is 6-foot-7 and Squier is 6-6.

Neither team has named a starter for Saturday’s series finale. A possible choice for the Wolf Pack is senior Troy Marks. Marks shut out Hawaii 10-0 in a seven-inning game last season at Peccole Park.

“We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves,” Powers said. “This next series is the most important one of the year because it is the next one. And our next game on Thursday is the most important game because it is the next one. That’s how we’ve approached this entire season. We’ll see what happens when we get to Saturday.”

The Rainbows (28-22) are all about their pitching. Hawaii’s earned run average (2.95) is the 19th best in the nation. They are 21-0 when holding their opponent to under three runs and just 7-22 when they allow three or more. They are also 22-0 when leading after eight innings as closer Brent Harrison has eight saves and a 1.17 ERA in 20 appearances.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” Powers said.

The Pack certainly does not want to go into Saturday’s game, with Shipley and Jameson already done for the series, needing a victory to earn a share of the league title. Three losses at Hawaii would drop the Pack down to third or fourth place. The goal for every team in the WAC this year is to finish either first or second to earn an all-important first-round bye in the WAC Tournament.

“That is huge,” Powers said.

The Wolf Pack left for Hawaii on Wednesday and will not return to northern Nevada until the end of the WAC Tournament.

“We’re confident,” third baseman Garrett Yrigoyen said. “Everyone believes in each other. This is a great group of guys on this team. We don’t want it to end anytime soon.”

The Pack used five senior pitchers to hold onto first place in the Western Athletic Conference and turn back the San Jose State Spartans 4-2 in front of 618 fans on Senior Day.

“It was just a great day,” said senior second baseman Joe Kohan, who tripled home the Pack’s final run in the seventh inning. “A lot of my family and friends were here. And the best part about it is we’re playing for something. That made it even more fun.”

The Wolf Pack, 30-21 overall, is in first place all by itself in the Western Athletic Conference at 10-5 with three games to play. Sacramento State, which finished its WAC season this weekend by sweeping Hawaii, is in second place at 11-7 followed by Hawaii and New Mexico State (both at 8-7), Louisiana Tech and Fresno State (both at 6-9) and San Jose State at 5-10. Six of the seven teams will qualify for the WAC postseason tournament May 23-27 in Mesa, Ariz.

“So far, so good,” said coach Gary Powers, whose Wolf Pack have never won a WAC regular season championship in a dozen years in the conference. “We still have three games to go.”

The Wolf Pack needs to win at least two games in its three-game series at Hawaii starting on Thursday in order to win the league title and capture the top seed in the WAC tournament. Sacramento State owns the tiebreaker against the Pack because it won the three-game series between the two teams.

“We’re not worried about all that right now,” said Powers, whose Wolf Pack would also lose a tiebreaker against New Mexico State. “We know what we have to do and nothing will change that. Our whole focus is to take care of ourselves and all the rest will take care of itself.”

The Wolf Pack took care of its seniors on Sunday, sending them out with a victory and a three-game series sweep over the slumping Spartans (21-25).

“We’re playing real well right now,” said freshman designated hitter Austin Byler, whose three-run home run snapped a scoreless tie in the fourth inning. “Our chemistry on this team is great. We’re really coming together and have a lot of confidence.”

“I was real proud of this team all weekend,” said Powers, whose Wolf Pack held San Jose State to just seven runs in the three games. “We kept our focus in all three games.”

The Wolf Pack won all three of its three-game WAC series this year at home over San Jose State, Fresno State and Louisiana Tech.

“We’re confident right now,” said senior third baseman Garrett Yrigoyen. “Everyone believes in each other. We know we’re a good team. We just have to go out there and grind it out.”

The Wolf Pack finished with a 21-10 home record this season for its most wins at home since the 2008 team went 25-8 at Peccole. It is also the sixth most wins at Peccole Park for the Pack since the park opened in 1988.

“It was just real nice to go out and get a win for these seniors,” said Byler, who now has four home runs this year.

The seven active seniors on the roster also went out and got the win for themselves.

Kohan’s triple, his sixth of the season, drove home Carlos Escobar with a much-needed insurance run in the seventh. Yrigoyen had two hits and scored on Byler’s home run. Five senior pitchers — Jayson McClaren, Troy Marks, Bryan Suarez, Tim Culligan and Matt Gardner — also contributed to the win in a big way.

Powers, who is still searching for a No. 3 starter, used six pitchers (freshman Tyler Wells also pitched to two hitters) in the important WAC game.

“I wanted to get as many guys as possible as prepared as possible for the games coming up,” Powers said. “Those five (seniors) all needed to get work in a game that meant something. We’re going to need all of those guys in the next few weeks. We need them to go out and get some confidence so that I can have confidence to use them down the line.”

McClaren started and pitched two perfect innings, getting five ground ball outs and one fly ball. Marks followed with two more shutout innings, allowing a hit and a walk. Suarez allowed three hits and both Spartan runs in 1.2 innings but Wells (one-third of an inning), Culligan (two innings) and Gardner (one inning) combined for 3.1 shutout innings to nail down the victory.

The Pack has now won 30 or more games in four of the last six seasons and 17 times in Powers’ 30 seasons as head coach.

“These seniors have never been part of something like this before,” said Kohan of the Pack‘s fight for first place going into the final weekend of the regular season. “We’ve come a long way as a team from last year to this year.”

Sunday, though, belonged to the seniors.

“It really hasn’t sunk in yet that this is the last game I‘ll play here,” Yrigoyen said. “The last time I felt like this was in high school, with my family here.”

Yrigoyen had a simple message for his younger teammates.

“Enjoy your time here because it goes by fast,” he said. “Don’t worry about all the little negative things that might happen. Enjoy every moment because it will be over before you know it.”

“It feels good,” Pack coach Gary Powers said after a 5-4 victory over the San Jose State Spartans Saturday afternoon at Peccole Park. “But we still have a lot of baseball left to play.”

Powers’ Pack, though, are right where they want to be with four games remaining in the regular season. The Pack leads the WAC at 9-5, just ahead of Sacramento State (10-7), Hawaii (8-6), New Mexico State (8-7), Louisiana Tech and Fresno State (both 6-9) and San Jose State (5-9). Each team will play 18 league games with six of the seven teams qualifying for the WAC tournament in Mesa, Ariz., May 23-27.

The Wolf Pack, now 29-21, also secured a winning season with the victory through the postseason.

“To finish first would be huge for us,” said Matt Gardner, who got the final out in relief of starter Tom Jameson for his school-record 11th save of the season. “But the league is very tight right now and we know we have to keep grinding away.”

Nobody battled his way through Saturday’s game harder than Jameson. The senior right-hander allowed four runs (all earned) on seven hits through the first two innings but somehow still found himself on the mound with two outs in the ninth inning.

“It was a struggle, that’s for sure,” said Jameson, who earned the victory to improve to 7-2. “I was thinking I was going to be out of there by the fourth inning.”

Jameson, though he seemed to be in trouble every inning, found a way to blank the Spartans from the third inning through the eighth on just four hits.

“I finally found two pitches that were working,” said Jameson, who walked one and struck out one and threw 105 pitches before leaving with two runners on base and two outs in the ninth. “Those first couple innings all I had was my fastball and that wasn’t even working most of the time.”

Jameson, who found his split-finger fastball along about the third inning, was helped along by three double plays in the first three innings.

“The whole day was a battle for me,” said Jameson, who had gone seven consecutive starts before Saturday without allowing more than two earned runs.

Third baseman Garrett Yrigoyen made an outstanding play toward the line for the first out in the third inning. Shortstop Kyle Hunt ended the fifth inning with a runner on second with a nice play behind the bag and did the same to end the seventh. Catcher Carlos Escobar also helped Jameson by throwing out a Spartan runner trying to steal second in the eighth. Jameson also helped his cause in the eighth by throwing a runner out at second on a sacrifice bunt attempt.

“That was really a gutsy effort,” said Powers of Jameson. “No doubt about that.”

Jameson didn’t allow more than one base runner in an inning from the fifth through the eighth and was one out away from his second complete game of the year in the ninth before allowing two singles.

“Baseball is a funny game that way,” Powers said. “In the past he might not have recovered from a start like that. But he has really matured.”

The Wolf Pack scored a pair of runs in the third inning on a two-run single by Kewby Meyer to cut the Spartans lead to 4-2. Run-scoring singles by Escobar and Jay Anderson tied the game at 4-4 in the sixth.

The Pack pushed across the go-ahead run in the seventh on singles by Meyer, Yrigoyen and Brooks Klein off hard-throwing reliever Zack Jones (now 3-4).

“He throws pretty hard,” said Klein of Jones, whose fastball was clocked on Saturday at around 95 miles per hour. “He’s one of the hardest throwers we’ve seen this year.”

The Pack, though, didn’t have any problems making contact against the Spartans reliever. Jamison Rowe also doubled off Jones in the eighth.

“It’s a lot of fun when a guy is challenging you like that,” said Klein, who had three hits to lift his average to a team-best .352.

Klein’s single gave Jameson a chance for a victory and the 6-foot-7 right-hander didn’t argue when Powers came to the mound to remove him from the game with two outs and two runners on base in the ninth.

“No, it was time,” Jameson said. “I wanted to finish it but I knew it was time. I just said to (Gardner), ‘Pick me up. ‘ And that‘s what he did.”

Gardner was coming off a disastrous performance on Tuesday when he failed to protect a six-run lead with two outs in the ninth inning in an eventual 9-8 win over UC Davis.

“I put that in the past,” Gardner said. “But it was good to get out there. I was hoping they would put me out there on Friday (in a 4-1 win over the Spartans). I live for those high-intensity situations.”

Gardner retired San Jose State’s Caleb Natov on a ground ball to Meyer at first base for the final out. Meyer, though, moved to his right to field the ball and the left-hander first looked to end the game with a force out at second. But he changed his mind and threw to Gardner, covering first, narrowly getting Natov for the final out.

“I didn’t know what he was doing,” said Gardner. “I kept yelling at him, ‘I’m here, I’m here.’” I’m glad he threw it to me.”

Gardner now owns the Wolf Pack record for saves in a season with 11, ahead of Rico Lagattuta (1995) and Tyler Graham (2010) at 10. He is also second in school history in career saves with 17, behind Lagattuta (24 from 1993-96).

“The ninth inning is my inning,” Gardner said. “I understand why they keep rolling our starters out there in the ninth because they’ve been doing a great job but I always want to be out there.”

The Wolf Pack, which will wrap up their regular season with three games at Hawaii starting on Thursday, will conclude their three-game series with San Jose State on Sunday at 1 p.m. The seven active seniors on the roster — Joe Kohan, Troy Marks, Jayson McClaren, Bryan Suarez, Tim Culligan, Gardner and Yrigoyen — will be honored before the game.

The Wolf Pack pitcher’s great grandfather, who was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease six months ago, passed away this week at the age of 85.

“It was tough for me,” Shipley said. “It was a tough week. I thought about him all night. That’s why I dedicated this game to him.”

It just so happened that Shipley dedicated his best effort as a starting pitcher in a Wolf Pack uniform to his great grandfather. The sophomore pitched his first complete-game victory of the year as the Wolf Pack beat the San Jose Spartans, 4-1, in front of 518 fans at Peccole Park.

Actually, make that 519.

“I know he was here watching me tonight,” said Shipley of his great grandfather.

Shipley was in total control of his emotions and the Spartans bats all evening. The 6-foot-2, 170-pound right-hander from Medford, Ore., who was the Pack‘s starting shortstop last season, allowed just six hits to improve to 8-3 on the season. Three double plays over the final five innings also got him out of any possible trouble in the late innings.

“I had control of all my pitches,” said Shipley, who lowered his earned run average this season to 2.07 through 13 starts. “I just kept telling myself to stay relaxed and just make my pitches. I knew if I could just place my pitches where I wanted that I wouldn’t have much trouble.”

The victory put the Wolf Pack in a tie for first place in the Western Athletic Conference with Hawaii at 8-5 (28-21 overall).

“That was a championship effort on his part,” said Pack coach Gary Powers, whose club also clinched a winning record in the regular season with five games left. “I told him before the game, ’You have to set the tone out there.’ He just looked at me and said, ‘Don’t worry. I got it. No problem.’”

The only thing resembling a problem that Shipley experienced took place in the second inning when Ricky Acosta drove home Michael Gerlach with a two-out single to give San Jose State a brief 1-0 lead. Shipley also allowed a leadoff single and a two-out walk in the third before escaping harm.

“For the most part I stayed calm out there the whole game,” Shipley said. “Other than that second inning, I didn’t have a lot of problems.”

Shipley got the Spartans to bounce into rally-killing double plays in the fifth, eighth and ninth innings. Each double play was started by second baseman Joe Kohan with shortstop Kyle Hunt serving as the middle man.
“That team (San Jose State) is very scrappy,” said Shipley of the Spartans (21-23, 5-8). “They aren’t going to strike out a lot. So the key is to get them to hit the ball on the ground.”

Shipley, who fanned three and walked four, threw 77 of his 120 pitches for strikes.

“Those double plays are what allowed him to stay in the game,” Powers said.

He can also thank Hunt and Kohan. The Pack now leads the WAC and is second in the nation with 59 double plays.

“Those two guys are great,” said Shipley of Kohan and Hunt. “I know because I’ve worked with both of them on the infield. I know with those guys all I need to do is get a ground ball and they will turn it.”

“We just always tell him, ‘Put the ball on the carpet,’” Hunt said. ‘We’ll take care of it.’ Joe and I have great chemistry out there. He knows where to feed me the ball and I know where to feed him the ball. We’ve bonded out there pretty well.”

It was Hunt’s bat that gave Shipley some breathing room. The freshman shortstop drove in the Pack’s second run in a two-run second inning for a 2-1 lead and his two-out double to right field gave the Pack a 3-1 lead in the seventh.

“That second (RBI) was huge for us,” Hunt said. “It gave us some comfort there. I was just happy we scored some runs for him (Shipley).”

Brooks Klein doubled home Brett Jones to tie the game in the second before Hunt singled home Klein for the 2-1 lead. Jay Anderson tripled and Jamison Rowe doubled in the eighth for the Pack’s fourth and final run.
Powers, who watched his bullpen blow a six-run lead with two outs in the ninth inning in a 9-8 win over UC Davis on Tuesday, was happy to see Shipley go the distance. It was just the Pack’s second complete game this season.

“He certainly wasn’t going to let us take him out,” smiled Powers. “And we didn’t want to take him out. He threw a lot of strikes and got big ground balls when he had to.”

The Wolf Pack and Spartans will continue their three-game series at Peccole on Saturday (1 p.m.) and Sunday (1 p.m.).

The sophomore showed why she’s the designated hitter for Nevada’s softball team Saturday afternoon when she belted a pitch from Brigham Young University’s Hannah Howell over the centerfield wall for a 2-run home run. If anyone on the team is going to hit a homer, it’s going to be Puzey.

“Puzey is just a physical stud on that front, “head coach Matt Meuchel said. “You look at her size, her strength. She’s had to endure some injuries as far as her knee and her shoulder go, but when you first watch the kid play, she’s got as strong an arm as anybody I’ve ever recruited, she’s as physical and as big and has as much power as anybody I’ve ever recruited. She’s somebody who has all of the tools so she’s going to be a real special player on that front.”

Puzey is another in a line of softball and baseball players in her family. Her mother Kim pitched for the team from 1983-85, her brother Zachary is a sophomore at Reno High School who plays on the junior varsity baseball team and her father Jim played baseball for the Wolf Pack from 1982-85. He was also drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 17th round of the 1985 Major League Baseball Amateur Draft. Puzey played the next five years until 1989, reaching as high as the Triple-A level of the organization. In his five seasons, he produced a .259 batting average with 13 home runs and 113 RBI.

While some people may recognize her father’s name, many more recognize her sister Brittany, who was arguably the best player Nevada’s softball program has ever seen and is the most decorated player in its history. In fact, she was named to the All-Western Athletic Conference team three times, the All-WAC Academic team three times and started all four of her years on the squad. She also at the top of nearly every hitting category there is. To highlight how good she was, consider that her career batting average was .305 and she hit a total of 34 home runs and 166 RBI. In her senior season alone in 2009, she hit a ridiculous .356. These days, she’s attending law school at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Brittany’s greatness did have a somewhat negative impact on Sam when she came to Nevada. It was inevitable that she would be compared to her sister and thus be overshadowed by her even though she wasn’t there.
“There’s a lot of pressure that every single Division-1 athlete goes through, “Jim said. “But there’s some added pressure that Sam is at Nevada following her sister who had a great successful career there.”

“Yes, I felt like that sometimes, “Sam said. “I would hear comments and I would make a bigger deal about it in my head than other people were making it.”

But Sam has turned a corner this season. She’s not letting the comparisons get to her.

“This year I feel like I’ve broken away from that feeling a little more, “she said. “I just try to focus on myself and not think about what she’s accomplished, just what I can accomplish for myself. But my freshman year it definitely affected me.”

“They’re two different people, two different personalities, “Meuchel said. “There’s no way you can compare them and there’s no reason to compare them.”

The comparisons don’t end there. Puzey played softball at RHS where her father is a legend as well. The greatness in Sam’s family has brought recognition to her name. The name has even been compared to royalty by the Reno Gazette Journal’s Ray Hagar via Twitter.

Puzey has the potential to be as productive as her sister, but there’s already a relatively large wrench thrown into her spokes. Puzey has had eight total knee surgeries; seven on her left and one on her right. Her knees have held her back in the past and she’s battled injuries ever since she came to Nevada. Her freshman year in 2010 was dotted with injury problems and she redshirted last year because of surgery to her shoulder for a torn rotator cuff and labrum. It’s something she’s had to struggle with, and her father said that she hasn’t been completely healthy since she was 13 years old.

“That’s the knee she turns on to hit (her left) so it has affected a lot of her ability to drive balls, “Jim said. “She becomes frustrated because she can’t drive balls the way she feels she should be able to.”

He also said it’s impressive that she has been able to keep the third spot in the batting order with how many injuries she’s had since she came to Nevada. It shows how good she is despite being handicapped so badly.
Along with having the gift of hitting, Puzey shares injury bug with the rest of her family. Her brother Zachary has been plagued with post-concussion symptoms like migraines and vertigo for the past 18 months and that have severely limited his time on the field. Her father once broke his jaw in a minor league game after he was hit with a fastball and missed most of the season. Brittany had broken hands and ankles. They’ve all been through it.

“It’s unfortunate that we’re probably never going to be able to see a completely healthy Sam Puzey, “Jim said. “That would be a fun thing to see.”

One possible explanation for her continuing injury problems is the fact that she never stopped playing sports in high school. Along with playing on the school softball and basketball teams, Puzey also played on a travelling softball team called the San Jose Lady Sharks for four years. This team is part of the Amateur Softball Association and it competes nationally. Playing on a team like this develops a player’s skills to get ready for a college team. Puzey learned how to take her craft seriously while she was a Lady Shark.

“I learned what it takes to be dedicated because you have to travel every weekend, “she said. “You’re not home for anything during high school. You miss all the dances and stuff like that. When you’re going through travel ball you’re trying to sell yourself to colleges.”

With just the Western Athletic Conference tournament on the horizon, Nevada’s season is slowly coming to a close. In the offseason, Puzey will be able to rest her knees and get ready for next spring when the 2013 season begins. Hopefully then she will be able to have a breakout season and terrify opposing WAC pitchers.

“How bad do you want it?” the Pack head coach said. “We’re going to find out the answer to that question pretty soon.”

The Wolf Pack is heading into its most crucial stretch of games starting Friday night (6 p.m.) when the San Jose State Spartans come to Peccole Park for the beginning of a crucial three-game Western Athletic Conference series.

“It’s huge,” junior outfielder Jamison Rowe said. “And it’s also senior weekend, the last games here for the seniors. All three games are very important.”

The Wolf Pack, now 27-21 overall and 7-5 in the tight WAC race, will conclude the regular season with three games at Hawaii next weekend, May 17-19.

“Every game here on out is like a tournament game,” Powers said. “We have to approach it that way. At the beginning of every year our goals are always the same, to win the conference regular season title and to win the conference tournament. And here we are with two weekends left, those goals are still right there for us. You can’t ask for anything more than that.”

The goal of every WAC team this year is to finish in either first or second place in the regular season in order to receive a one-game bye in the WAC Tournament (May 23-27 in Mesa, Ariz.). That one-game bye can be crucial, Powers said.

“To give us our best shot at winning the tournament we have to finish first or second,” Powers said. “I’m not saying we can’t win it if we don’t finish first or second. But it will be a lot tougher if we don’t.“

Everything in the sport of baseball revolves around pitching. The first or second-place team in the WAC can win the double-elimination tournament just by winning three consecutive games. The teams that finish third through sixth, if they lose their first game in the tournament, would need to win six games over four days in order to win the tournament and earn the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA regionals.

“You really want to go in there (the WAC tournament) with momentum,” said Rowe, who scored the game-winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning in a 9-8 win over UC Davis on Tuesday. “You always want the other teams to fear you a little bit when you are in a tournament like that.”

Nothing has been decided as of yet in the WAC’s 18-game regular season.

“There’s only 18 games in the league this year,” said Powers. “Every game is crucial.”

Hawaii currently owns a slim lead in the standings at 8-4 with the Wolf Pack and New Mexico State close behind at 7-5. Sacramento State, which hosts Hawaii for three games this weekend, is at 8-7, followed by San Jose State (5-7), Louisiana Tech (6-9) and Fresno State (4-8).

The Wolf Pack would clinch a tournament spot with a three-game series sweep over San Jose State this weekend. A sweep would also likely put the WAC regular season title on the line when the Pack travels to Hawaii next weekend.

“This team is now facing a huge challenge each and every day,” said Powers, whose Wolf Pack have not finished first in the regular season since its final year in the Big West Conference in 2000. “We’ll see how they respond.”

The Wolf Pack has won its last two games but is sort of staggering into the weekend a little bit after losing two of three at Seattle last weekend and blowing a six-run lead with two outs and nobody on base in the ninth inning on Tuesday against UC Davis before winning in the bottom of the ninth.

“All of the work we’ve put in this year, all of the preparation we’ve done, has all led up to this point,” Powers said. “From here on out, we either get it done now or the season will be over.

“The preparation is over.”

Is this Pack team ready to go on a run and secure its first NCAA Regional spot since 2000? Not even Powers knows the answer to that question.

Bradey Shipley, who is scheduled to start Friday against San Jose State, and Tom Jameson, who is expected to start on Saturday, are the best one-two punch on the mound in the WAC right now. Shipley is 7-3 with a 2.21 ERA and Jameson is 6-2 with a 1.90 ERA.

After that, though, the pitching staff is a concern. When asked to name his starter on Sunday, Powers answered, “We’ll see.”

Tyler Wells (3-5, 6.30), who has been part of the Pack’s three-man weekend rotation all season, has struggled in five of his last six starts dating back to late March. Wells has allowed 14 hits and 14 earned runs in just 10 innings over his last three starts against Sacramento State, Fresno State and Seattle.

Powers moved Wells from the No. 2 starter role to No. 3 last weekend at Seattle because he wants to head into the WAC Tournament with Shipley and Jameson as his No. 1 and 2. Jameson had been in the No. 3 role until last weekend.

Powers might just leave Wells in the No. 3 role because nobody from the bullpen seems ready to pitch more the three or four innings at a time.

Tim Culligan (2-1, 1.11), Jayson McClaren (1-1, 3.00) and Sean Prihar (1-1, 4.08) have been as consistent as any Pack reliever all season and might be candidates for that No. 3 starting job but Culligan is coming off an injury and Prihar and McClaren have not started a game all year.

Troy Marks (0-3, 8.51), Elliot Van Gaver (1-0, 7.30), Kody Gorden (0-0, 6.28), Daniel Levine (0-2, 5.87), Bryan Suarez (0-0, 5.27) and Barry Timko (4-0, 4.91) have had rollercoaster seasons but are also firmly in the mix. Marks pitched well as a starter a year ago with a 4,21 ERA but has struggled this year.

Matt Gardner (10 saves, 4.84) , despite struggling in his last two outings, remains the closer with Colby Blueberg (1-2, 4.50) and Garrett Yrigoyen (0-0, 3.,18) also in the mix for short duty. Yrigoyen, who normally plays third base, is an intriguing choice as a guy who can come in and pitch an important inning. The senior right-hander has made just six appearances all year, tossing 5.2 innings, but has shown the ability to dominate with his 90-plus miles per hour fastball, allowing just four hits and a walk while striking out six.
The Pack offense has also been inconsistent all year. They scored just 11 runs over a five-game stretch April 28 through May 5, losing three of the games. The last two games, though, the Pack has scored eight and nine runs in beating Seattle and UC Davis.

“It’s the same thing with our pitchers and hitters,” Powers said. “It’s concentration and focus. Some of our hitters are dialed in every time up there. But other guys, it can change from pitch to pitch. It’s about discipline. One at-bat they are swinging at pitches they are supposed to swing at and the next at-bat they are swinging at bad pitches and losing focus.”

Powers said now is the time for everyone to get dialed in.

“This is what you play for,” Powers said. “These are the games you want to play in all year. We’re going to find out just how much we want this.”

The three games marked the final regular season appearances for the team’s three seniors in Alex Arciniega, Kortnee Wiley and Mallary Darby. The numbers 2, 17 and 5 were sprayed into the grass just outside the infield in honor of the three seniors.

The result of the three games didn’t exactly do the occasion any justice. The first game on Friday was cut short by the mercy rule when BYU coasted to an 8-0 victory. The same thing happened in the first game of Saturday’s double header when Nevada was victim to a 10-0 drubbing by the Cougars.

The Wolf Pack was finally competitive in the final game but still fell 4-7. Despite the loss, there were some happy moments, including Arciniega starting her first game since suffering a badly sprained ankle in February. In addition to the start, the senior collected her first three hits of the season.

The four runs were the only scoring Nevada had during the series. Sophomore Sam Puzey batted in three of those runs. She had two hits in the final game, including a 2-run home run over the center field wall in the third inning.

Nevada’s struggles could be explained by the fact that the BYU hitters seemed to be one step ahead of the pitchers all series long, according to head coach Matt Meuchel.

“It was kind of a tough weekend as far as them beating our pitching around a little bit, “he said. “It was a little bit of a grind (because) they were able to call out every pitch we had.”

As for Darby, who started the game, things could have gone better for her final start. She pitched the full seven innings, threw over 100 pitches and gave up seven earned runs. Since she’s at the top of nearly every pitching category in Nevada softball history, Wolf Pack fans will forgive her.

“I don’t mind it at all, “she said. “It’s my last game I’m going to play in front of Reno. My pitch count was not something I was thinking about out there. The game stayed interesting so it wasn’t something I paid attention to.”

Even though this is her last season of eligibility, it won’t be the end of her softball career. Once she’s finished with school, she’ll play professional softball in the Netherlands.

Now that the regular season has ended, Nevada’s focus has turned to the post season WAC tournament. The Wolf Pack has earned the fifth seed despite the fact it has the second fewest total wins in the conference and will face the fourth seed in San Jose State in the first round. The game will take place Wednesday in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

If Nevada is to beat San Jose State, it will have to play much better than it did in early April when the Spartans took two of the three games here in Reno. Those two games were also cut short by the mercy rule. The Wolf Pack sandwiched a 1-0 win in the second game. Given the history between these two teams, Meuchel still has high expectations.

“Our expectations are to win the tournament, “he said. “We’re going out there to win the WAC tournament. Simply put, other than that, our season is over and we know that.”

He said that the team has played better as of late but will have to face one of the top pitchers in the conference to move on: Amanda Pridmore.

If there is one thing for sure about this time of year, it’s win or go home.

Four more members of the Wolf Pack’s historic team two seasons ago were drafted by the National Football League last week, bringing the number of players from that historic team selected by the NFL to seven.
Linebackers James-Michael Johnson (fourth round, Cleveland Browns), Brandon Marshall (fifth round, Jacksonville Jaguars), cornerback Isaiah Frey (sixth round, Chicago Bears) and wide receiver Rishard Matthews (7th round, Miami Dolphins) were drafted this year. Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (second round, San Francisco 49ers), defensive end Dontay Moch (third round, Cincinnati Bengals) and tight end Virgil Green (seventh round, Denver Broncos) were taken in 2011.

The 2010 team is just one draft pick away from equaling the school record of eight players drafted by the NFL off one Nevada team. The 1946 and 1948 Wolf Pack teams each had eight players drafted by the NFL.
Drafted off the 1946 Wolf Pack were: Dick Tilton (Washington Redskins, 1950), Ken Sinofsky (Los Angeles Rams, 1948), Scott Beasley (Philadelphia Eagles, 1948), Don Talcott (drafted by the Eagles in 1945 but didn’t sign until 1947), Buster McClure (drafted in 1946 by Boston Yanks but didn’t sign until 1947), Max Dodge (Boston Yanks, 1946), Bill Mackrides (Eagles, 1947) and Tommy Kalmanir (Pittsburgh Steelers, 1947).

Drafted off the 1948 Wolf Pack were: Tilton, Sinofsky, Beasley, Kalmanir, Bill Osborne (Green Bay Packers, 1950), Fred Leon (Eagles in 1949 and Packers in 1950), Dan Orlich (Packers, 1949) and Stan Heath (Packers in 1948 and 1949).

The 2010 team, however, could very well become the Wolf Pack’s all-time producer of NFL draft picks. Current Wolf Pack players such as seniors Jeff Nady, Chris Barker, Zach Sudfeld, Brandon Wimberly, Marlon Johnson, Khalid Wooten, Albert Rosette, Jeremiah Green, Thaddeus Brown and Duke Williams, who all played on the 2010 team, all have their sights set on the 2013 draft.

Getting drafted, though, doesn’t necessarily guarantee a long NFL career. Of the 13 Wolf Pack players from the 1940s that were drafted, just five of them (Pat Brady, Orlich, McClure, Kalmanir and Mackrides) played more than one season in the league. Brady, who played for the Pack in 1949 and 50 and was drafted by the New York Giants in 1952, played three years with the Steelers. Orlich played three years with the Packers, McClure lasted two years with the Yanks, Kalmanir played four years with the Rams and Baltimore Colts and Mackrides played six seasons with the Steelers, Giants and Eagles.

This year’s draft class is the first in NFL history with as many as four Pack players. The 2011 (Kaepernick, Moch, Green), 1998 (DeShone Myles, John Dutton, James Cannida), 1950 (Tilton, Leon, Bill Osborne), 1949 (Heath, Orlich, Leon) and 1948 (Heath, Beasley, Sinofsky) all had three Pack players.

Johnson, the first Pack player picked last week, was the 120th player taken overall in the draft and the 15th linebacker (Marshall was the 20th) taken in the draft out of 33. Frey was the 21st cornerback selected out of 28 drafted and Matthews was the 29th wide receiver taken out of 33.

Marshall will join a crowded Browns roster at linebacker led by six-year veteran D’Qwell Jackson. Jackson led the Browns with 158 tackles a year ago.

Also back are Chris Gocong (70 tackles), Kaluka Maiava (34 tackles) and Quinton Spears (eight tackles) as well as practice squad players Ben Jacobs, Craig Robertson, Brian Smith and rookie Emmanuel Acho of Texas, who was drafted in the sixth round. Another veteran, Scott Fujita, had 50 tackles last year and is suspended for the first three games of the season for his role in the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal.

Johnson, who played inside linebacker his last two seasons at Nevada, was asked by the Browns media whether he prefers to play inside or outside.

“I’m comfortable with either role,” he said. “I’m a linebacker. I can play any position.”

Johnson was also asked if he would be opposed to playing special teams to start his NFL career.

“I played special teams every year I was at Nevada,” he said. “It’s something I like doing and I embrace it.

“I’m a competitor. I just love the game of football.”

Johnson said he can’t wait to get started.

“I’m very motivated after seeing a lot of linebackers go before me (in the draft) that I don’t think are better than me,” He said. “Stuff like that is going to motivate you, to make you work harder. I’m going to be motivated. You don’t have to worry about that. I not a guy you have to motivate.”

Marshall’s best hope for an active roster spot in 2012 with the Jaguars is also on special teams. Jacksonville’s linebacker group is led by Paul Posluzny (119 tackles), Daryl Smith (107), Russell Allen (48) and Clint Session. Kyle Bosworth and Jeremy Cain also saw action last year.

Marshall, who was the only linebacker the Jaguars selected last week, spent the bulk of his first meeting with the Jaguars media explaining that he is not Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall.

“Man, I get the comparison all the time,” Marshall said. “Almost everyday, people on Facebook, people on Twitter. Just the other day somebody tweeted me, ‘Who would you like the Bears to pick with the 19th pick?’ I just tweeted back, ‘Brandon Marshall, linebacker from Nevada.’

“Then he tweeted back to me, ‘It would be crazy for two people on the same team to have the same name.”

Marshall said he might like to be known in the NFL as Brandon M. Marshall. The M is for Markeith, his middle name.

“I get people who tell me, “Oh, you’re not the real Brandon Marshall. I’m like, ‘What do you mean the real Brandon Marshall? Am I fake or something?’”

The Jaguars sang the praises of Marshall.

“He has the upside to become a starter someday,” Jaguars director of player personnel Terry McDonough said. “He has outstanding size and speed. He can blitz, play the run and he is very instinctive against the pass. I can see him eventually someday starting.

“This kid is not just a backup special teamer with physical limitations. This guy has a good skill set to be a starter in this league.”

The Bears’ selection of Frey just might be the most surprising of the Wolf Pack’s draft picks this year. The Pack cornerback, after all, wasn’t even invited to the NFL Combine in Indianapolis in February.

“Frey has good size and that is one of the things you look for in the (Bears’) Cover-2 scheme,” the Chicago Tribune wrote last week. “He has shown a knack for being a playmaker but if he sticks it will be at the bottom of the roster.”

The Bears’ starting cornerbacks will likely be Charles Tillman and Tim Jennings in 2012. They also signed free agent defensive backs Kelvin Hayden and Jonathan Wilhite in recent months to join a crowded secondary that also includes Craig Steltz, Major Wright and D.J. Moore. The Bears also drafted defensive back Greg McCoy after Frey.

“There were a lot of teams telling me they were going to pick me,” Frey told the Appeal-Democrat newspaper in northern California. “I was just hoping somebody was going to pick me up.”

Frey waited by the phone last Saturday on the final day of the draft and then finally went golfing.

“I had to get my mind off it because I was so stressed out,” he said.

Frey finally got the call from the Bears on the golf course.

“A woman called me and asked me if I was Isaiah Frey,” Frey said. “She asked me then to hold on the line. So I waited and she finally came back on the line and said. ‘Welcome to Chicago.’

“I talked to (Bears head coach) Lovie Smith and he said he was excited to have me. I thanked him for the opportunity. It was surreal. I was pretty emotional.”

Frey’s family have been long-time Bears supporters. He was raised with two dogs named “Bear” and “Payton,” for former Bears running back Walter Payton.

“My dad is a Bears fan,” Frey said. “A lot of his family lives near Chicago. We have a Chicago Bears helmet in the house. It’s crazy how God works.”

Matthews was the second wide receiver taken by the Dolphins in the draft after they picked Michigan State’s B.J. Cunningham in the sixth round.

The Dolphins, though, traded the other Brandon Marshall to the Bears after the season and return just two wide receivers (Davone Bess and Brian Hartline) who made a significant contribution to the team in 2011.
“I would say I have good ball skills and my ability to make plays after the catch I would say is excellent,” Matthews told the Miami media on draft day.

Matthews, who returned punts for the Wolf Pack, also declared his enthusiasm for special teams.

“I can play on an special teams,” he said. “I can contribute in whatever way they want me to.”

Exiled from its seven-year home in the West Coast Conference after the 1991 season, Wolf Pack baseball 20 years ago was a vagabond program seemingly in an endless holding pattern.

Their head coach, Gary Powers, headed into the 1992 season with an uninspiring career record of just 234-239 with just three winning seasons in nine years. Not even a brand new stadium on campus — a stadium, by the way, that likely saved the floundering and undistinguished program from a merciful and humane death just four years earlier — was attracting more than a few hundred fans to games on a regular basis.

And to make matter worse, it appeared that the now independent Wolf Pack had nothing to play for without a conference title to chase.

“We have to play for pride,” Powers said before the season.

Wolf Pack baseball two decades ago was clearly in desperate need of a spark, a flicker of hope, if only to boost confidence and courage heading into the unforgiving Big West Conference the following season in 1993.

That spark, though, was seemingly doused with a bucket of ice water in the season opener. The Wolf Pack, which finished 24-33 the year before, opened the 1992 season at Loyola Marymount, one of its former WCC foes, with a 12-4 loss made even uglier by seven Wolf Pack errors.

“I’m just glad we played the next day,” Powers said later in the 1992 season.

Confidence and courage was quickly turning into doubt and anxiety. The Pack found itself a good-but-not-great 4-3 on the year after a heartbreaking 9-8 loss at California in Berkeley after they had built a 7-0 lead.

A funny thing happened, though, on the way to a disastrous opening to yet another unheralded Pack baseball season. That seven-error debut and gut-wrenching loss at Cal was seemingly forgotten as the Pack went on to win its final three games on its annual, grueling, season-opening road trip. They came home with a 7-3 record and a feeling of being refreshed and energized.

“We have the potential to win a lot of games,” said Powers heading into the home opener, which was the first game of the Wolf Pack Classic.

The Pack opened its 1992 home schedule on Feb. 28 to unseasonably warm 60-degree temperatures by pounding the Utah Utes 16-3. Former Wooster High quarterback Scott Christy and former Wolf Pack wide receiver Chris Singleton both left Peccole Field (the name wouldn’t be changed to Peccole Park until a few years later) with towering home runs. Another former Pack football player, senior linebacker Dave Norman, had four hits and drove in three runs.

“This season is a reward for four years of frustration in football,” said Norman, who hadn’t played baseball since he was a 13th round draft pick of the Montreal Expos his senior year in high school.

Norman wasn’t the only one around the Pack baseball program in 1992 looking to wipe away years of personal frustration.

Even Powers, who is normally a glass half-empty type of guy, was surprisingly upbeat after the home-opening victory, the Pack’s biggest win in a home opener since a 17-1 win over Oregon Tech in 1984.
“Good things are happening for us right now,” said Powers, who evened his career record at 242-242 with the win over Utah.

The next day on Feb. 29 the Pack outlasted Pacific, 9-7, as shortstop Tony Torres and outfielder Jeff Manship each hit homers. Torres’ two-run blast wiped out a 5-4 Pacific lead in the seventh inning and made a winner out of starter Geoff Grenert.

The Pack was now 9-3 after 12 games for the first time in Powers’ coaching career, which began in 1983.
“Confidence, that’s what it is,” second baseman Dean Bonfigli said after the win over Pacific. “We know we can win every game. We never feel like we’re going to lose.”

The Wolf Pack wrapped up the Wolf Pack Classic by whipping Utah again, this time 9-1 on March 1 with head football coach Chris Ault, head men’s basketball coach Lenny Stevens and head women’s basketball coach Tommy Gates in attendance at Peccole Field.

Cody Kosman went seven innings for his fourth win of the year. Jerry Torres had a run-scoring triple and Singleton, who was skipping spring football drills, had a key two-run single.

“I decided to be dedicated to whatever sport I’m playing at the time,” said Singleton, explaining his decision to skip spring football. “If things start to go bad here I’m not going to let my mind wander and start thinking about football.”

Things were clearly not going badly at Peccole Field. The Pack was now 10-3 — and 3-0 at home — for its best start to a season since joining Division I in 1970.

The Wolf Pack went back out on the road to play in the Lewis and Clark Invitational, winning four of five games. Two of the victories were against Gonzaga and Washington State.

The Pack returned home with a sparkling 14-4 record and 10 wins in their last 11 games and crushed Cal State Stanislaus, 15-3, on March 10 as catcher Erik Moreno had three hits and a homer.

But it was a two-game weekend series against Wyoming on March 13-14 that was further proof that something magical was going on at Peccole Field this season.

The Pack beat Wyoming 6-5 in the first game as first baseman Petie Roach clubbed a walk-off home run in the 10th inning.

“As I was coming around second base I started to hear everybody yelling,” Roach said after the game. “Then I saw everybody running out of the dugout. You get some kind of a rush when you see that.”

It was even more special when he arrived at home plate. His teammates lifted him up on their shoulders and started serenading him with a tribute to his number 23, singing “two-three, two-three, two-three” over and over.

The Pack completed the sweep over Wyoming with a 6-0 shutout tossed by John Patton. The Pack defense also helped Patton by executing a triple play, from second baseman Bonfigli to shortstop Tony Torres to Roach at first.

Patton, who wrote the words “The General” under the bill of his Pack cap, was modest after the victory.
“To be honest,” he said. “They (Wyoming) don’t have too many good hitters.”

Patton dominated the Cowboys, allowing just two hits in nine innings.

“You have to call him ‘The General’ now,” smiled Norman.

A walk-off homer. A triple play. Peccole Field was becoming more than just a bright, shiny and clean facility that the Pack could walk to from their dorm rooms.

It was becoming an actual home-field advantage.

The Pack, now 17-4, then headed to the always challenging Best of the West Tournament at Fresno State for six tough games. They would go just 2-3-1 in Fresno, beating Wyoming and Nebraska, losing to Washington State (twice) and Northridge. But it was the tie, a 7-7 stalemate with Creighton, that was the noteworthy game of the week and one that would haunt the Pack later in the season.

The Wolf Pack trailed Creighton — the No. 26-ranked team in the nation — 6-0 before rallying to take a 7-6 lead. Creighton, though, tied the game at 7-7 in the ninth and that’s where the game ended because tournament rules prevented the 10th inning of any game to start if the length of the game through nine innings was greater than 2:50. It would prove to be a quirky rule that just might have cost the Pack dearly at the end of the season.

The Pack returned home on March 25 after stopping off at Sacramento State after the Fresno tournament to beat the Oregon State Beavers, 7-5. They survived a scare from Sonoma State (the 22nd ranked team in Division II), winning 6-5 as Tony Torres slammed a three-run homer and a triple.

The Pack, now 21-7-1 overall and 7-0 at home, had just completed a stretch of 16 games in 19 days. The schedule — the toughest thing about being an independent team — was starting to wear the Pack down.
“I just told them to take the next three days and get out of here,” Powers said after the win over Sonoma. “Everybody is just a bit tired right now and it shows.”

The Pack returned to the Peccole Field six days later to beat Chico State, 7-3. They were now 8-0 at home, their best home start to a season since they entered Division I 22 years earlier.

The Pack had to leave the friendly confines of Peccole Field the following weekend to play a three-game weekend series against Northridge, the same team that handed them a loss in the opening game of the Fresno State tournament. The results this time weren’t any better as the Pack lost all three games to fall to 22-10-1.

After the three losses at Northridge, the Pack knew its NCAA regional hopes — unheard of and laughable before the season but now at least a reasonable dream — were hanging by a thread. There were 22 games left in the season — 19 at Pack-friendly Peccole — and the Pack knew what it had to do.

Win them all.

And they almost did.

The Pack put a feather in its NCAA regional cap by beating California 17-8 on April 7 at Peccole, banging out 21 hits. Roach had a two-run triple in the first inning to set the tone and Moreno drilled a three-run homer. Moreno, Tony Torres, Singleton and Bonfigli all had three hits.

The thinking after the game was that the Pack took a huge step toward a spot in the 48-team regional by beating Cal, one of its chief competitors in the West for a postseason spot.

“This is a big win for us,” Roach said after the game.

The win over Cal seemed to spark the Pack into taking its game to the next level. They swept four games from Southern Utah at Peccole Field in three days. The last game of the series was a 25-4 blowout that lasted just five innings. Terrance Wilson, who drove in four runs in an 18-5 win to open the series, had two hits, two runs and two RBI in the final game. The Pack simply destroyed the out-manned Southern Utah team by a combined score of 62-12 in the four games to improve to 27-10-1 overall and 13-0 at home.

The Pack was clearly going to make it tough on the NCAA selection committee to leave them out of the postseason party.

The Pack completed a perfect 13-0 home stand from April 7-26 by beating Sacramento State and UC Davis in single games and sweeping San Francisco and Grand Canyon in a pair of three-game series. They headed into April with an eye-opening 35-10-1 record overall and 21-0 at home.

The Pack simply felt invincible at home with a 21-0 record.

They beat San Francisco 10-5 in the second game of a doubleheader after trailing 4-0 after the first inning.
“We could be down 15-0 but we never lose confidence,” said Roach, who went 4-for-5 in the doubleheader with a triple, homer and three RBI.

The Pack was now no longer just beating teams at home. They were destroying them. All but one of the victories in the unblemished 13-game home stand were by three runs or more. They outscored their opponents on average during the 13 games by a score of 12-4.

The Wolf Pack announced before the three-game series against Grand Canyon on April 24-26 that they were applying to become one of eight host schools in the regional. There was, obviously, no way the NCAA would give a regional site to the Wolf Pack, a team that was unheard of nationally, who averaged about 300 fans per game at home and a program with absolutely no previous postseason track record. But it was a nice gesture and a show of support that seemed to awaken the university to the fact that there was some pretty good baseball being played on campus.

The Pack used that boost of confidence and support to crush Grand Canyon 9-1, 5-1 and 11-8 in a three-game series. Wilson hit safely in all three games to extend his hitting streak to 13 games and also homered. Left fielder Jerry Torres made a dramatic catch leaning over the fence down the line in foul territory to close out the final game. Cody Kosman also set a school record in the last game by winning his 11th game of the year.

The Pack was now getting some national recognition, receiving votes in the USA Today college baseball rankings. And whispers of the first unbeaten home season in school history were now turning into loud roars. Just six home games — one against Pacific, two against Chapman and three to close out the year against UNLV — remained on the schedule.

“That’s not even part of our thought process,” Powers said.

He couldn’t have been more wrong. A perfect home season was now on everybody’s mind.

“We know it’s going to be hard for a team to come in here and beat us,” said Wilson after the Grand Canyon series.

The Pack won at Chico State, 8-1, to improve to 36-10-1. They then came back to Peccole to beat Pacific and Chapman to improve to 39-10-1 and 24-0 at home.

The numbers were now getting ridiculous. The 6-4 win in the second game against Chapman set a Wolf Pack school record for victories in a season at 39, breaking the 1980 team’s mark of 38.

The Wolf Pack then went to Sacramento State for two games, winning the first game 10-2 to extend their winning streak to 18 in a row (the 1980 team won 20 in a row) and give the program its first 40-win season in history. The winning streak ended in the second game against Sacramento State with a 3-1 loss.

Wolf Pack baseball, though, was now the hottest thing on campus. UNLV was coming to Peccole Field for a season-ending three-game series with the perfect home record — and a possible regional berth — on the line.
The Wolf Pack athletic department put 1,000 seats on sale for each game and sold them all before the series started. UNLV coach Fred Dallimore, a former Reno High and Wolf Pack pitching star, fueled the rivalry before the series began, saying, “I think it’s an uphill battle for them (the Pack) to get a regional spot.”

Powers was remaining optimistic.

“We’ll go anywhere to play (in a regional),” he said. “Send us to Miami, send us to Texas, send us to Wichita. We just want a chance.”

One thing was certain. For the Pack to have any chance at getting an at-large regional bid, they had to sweep UNLV.

And that had never been easy, ever since the rivalry began in 1968.

The Rebels came to Peccole Field with a 30-21 record, their 17th season in a row with 30 or more victories. They had won 30 of their last 37 games against the Pack dating back to 1979, winning 19 in a row during one stretch from 1979-85.

That 30-21 record paled in comparison to the Pack’s gaudy 40-11-1 record but the Rebels, who played in the Big West Conference, had played a much tougher schedule, taking on the likes of LSU, San Jose State, Long Beach State, Cal State Fullerton and Arizona State.

The Rebels also featured five players — Dan Madsen, Aaron Turnier, Jonathan Jarolimek, T.J. Mathews and Tory Miran — who would get drafted a few weeks later by major league baseball. They also had three former Reed High stars — John Coats, Nick Kuster and current Pack pitching coach Pat Flury — who would have liked nothing better than to pop the Pack’s regional bubble and ruin their perfect home season.

The Wolf Pack quickly fell behind 4-1 in the first game of the series.

Remember what Roach said earlier in the season about being down 15-0 and not losing confidence? He was telling the truth.

Roach homered to cut the deficit to 4-3 and the Pack stunned the Rebels 10-9 to win the opening game of the series. The Pack also won the second game of the doubleheader that day, 9-5, and completed the three-game series sweep over the Rebels with a 2-0 victory the following day.

Tony Torres had six hits in the doubleheader and Roach hit a homer in both games. Kevin Lake won the second game with four innings of relief help from Patton. Roach drove in seven runs in the three games.
“We knew it was going to be a battle to the death,” Roach said.

The Pack, though, kept all of its dreams alive that day.

Kosman turned in one of the greatest pitching performances in Wolf Pack history, tossing a six-hit shutout with nine strikeouts to win the final game of the series and improve his season record to 13-2.

Everything was on the line that day — a perfect home season, a series sweep over UNLV, a chance at a regional bid — and Kosman was at his best.

“We played today like it was our regional,” Norman said.

Wilson made an unbelievable catch in center field, robbing UNLV’s M.J. Mariani of an extra base hit in the second game of the series.

After the doubleheader sweep, Powers was almost gushing.

When asked if this was the greatest day of his coaching career, the coach said, ‘It would have to be. We’ve had some good ones but this would have to be it. We proved today we’re for real.”

The only thing better than the doubleheader sweep might have been the 2-0 win the next day that completed the Pack’s unbelievable 27-0 perfect home season, a unbeatable record that will likely never even be equaled.

“I don’t think people understand how difficult it is to go undefeated at home,” said Singleton, munching on a victory hot dog after the sweep over UNLV. “Everybody talks about home cooking. But to win every game at home it takes more than just feeling comfortable. You have to play great, winning baseball everyday.”

The Pack felt pretty good about its regional chances after sweeping UNLV. They had, after all, seemingly done what was required. They went 21-1 after losing the three games at Northridge. They went 27-0 at home. They won 40-plus games, finishing with a 43-11-1 record. They swept a team (UNLV) with 30 wins from a big-time conference. In addition to going 27-0 at home, they went 16-11-1 on the road.

“I don’t care who you are playing,” Powers said. “A 43-11 record is a great record in any league.”

Nobody in silver and blue, though, was making regional plans just yet. The selection committee would pick the 48-team field the following day.

“Every year somebody gets screwed,” Roach said. “Hopefully this year it won’t be us.”

“Those three wins (over UNLV) prove we belong,” Powers said. “Now nobody can take away from anything we’ve done this year.”

It turns out they could.

The entire Wolf Pack team and coaching staff gathered at J.J.’s Pie Company in Reno to view the ESPN selection show and were left crying in their pizza.

“What does it take to get in?” asked Kosman, not really expecting an answer. “To practice hard every day, to work your butt off all year, to win all those games. And to not get rewarded? It just doesn’t seem right.”

A ton of what-ifs ran through the Pack heads that day. What if they beat Creighton instead of just tying them? What if they won at least one game against Northridge instead of losing all four? What if they won at Cal in the seventh game of the year instead of losing 9-8 after building a 7-0 lead? What if they won at Sacramento State in that final road game of the year and finished the year with a 22-game winning streak?
Cal, which finished with a 31-25 record, earned a spot in the regionals. Their head coach (Bob Milano), it turns out, was on the nine-member selection committee.

“As soon as I saw Cal in there, I know we’d be in trouble,” Powers said.

It turns out the Pack just had too many Chapmans, Sonoma States, Grand Canyons, UC Davises, Chico States, Lewis and Clark States, Linfield Colleges and Southern Utahs on their independent schedule.
“I guess our schedule came back to haunt us,” Bonfigli said.

Nothing, though, could spoil the accomplishments of the 1992 Wolf Pack baseball team. What they did — 43 wins, a perfect 27-0 home season, an 18-game winning streak, the first three-game series sweep over UNLV in school history — still rank as the best or one of the best in school history.

There were also a lot of individual milestone seasons on that team. Roach set a school record with 14 homers. Kosman won a record 13 games. Wilson hit .371, Tony Torres hit .340, Jerry Torres hit .339, Manship hit .331 and Roach hit .323 with a team-best 60 RBI.

The two football players were big keys all year as Singleton hit .308 with 13 stolen bases and Norman hit .317 with seven homers and 10 steals. Moreno was a workhorse behind the late, playing in 51 games and hitting .286 with 33 RBI.

It was the pitching staff though, that keyed the entire year. The Pack had a sterling 3.38 team earned run average and held opponents to a .250 batting average. David Croft was 5-0 with a 2.22 ERA in 14 appearances. Grenert, Lake, Kosman and Patton were a combined 30-8. Shane Doyle was 4-3 with a 2.66 ERA in 12 games. Robert Teasdale was 3-0 with a 1.62 ERA in 10 games.

The 1992 team also accomplished something greater than the gaudy numbers. It was the season that paved the way for all of the success the program would enjoy later in the decade with four regional appearances in seven years from 1994-2000.

It was the season that proved that anything was indeed possible. The biggest little program in the world that began the year looking for an identity had finally found one.

“We’ve been coming as a program for four years now, ever since we built this facility (Peccole Field),” said Powers after the UNLV sweep. “We’ve been on even ground with the best programs in the country.”

The Pack was good at Peccole in the four seasons prior to 1992 with a home record of 69-43 (.616). But William Peccole’s gift to his alma mater clearly took care of her Wolf Pack in 1992 and lifted the Pack’s homefield advantage to a new level.

The Pack was one of the top programs at home from 1992 through 2000 with a record of 162-50, a winning percentage of .764. Since the start of the 1992 season, the Pack has been 375-171 at Peccole through Tuesday’s 6-5 win over St. Mary’s for a success rate of ..687. Overall, the Pack is 444-214 at home since Peccole was built in 1988 (.675) and has had 24 winning seasons at home in 25 years.

“None of us wants to leave this park today,” said Norman, standing just outside the Wolf Pack dugout at Peccole Field after the sweep over UNLV on the landmark season’s final day. “I want to look out on this field forever.”