FRESNO, Calif. - No. 24 Nevada received a great pitching performance from Katie Holverson and Mallary Darby and some timely hitting as the Wolf Pack beat New Mexico State on Thursday night and advance to the next round of the Western Athletic Conference Tournament.
Nevada (37-16) won 4-1 and eliminated the Aggies (33-21) from the tournament. The Wolf Pack will play Hawaii on Friday at 4:30 p.m. in a losers' bracket game at Bulldog Diamond.
Tied at one going into the bottom of the fifth inning, the Wolf Pack pushed three runs across to take control of the game. A walk by Sarah Hunt and a single from Jessica Haight put two on with no outs. After Danielle Patrick's sacrifice bunt moved the runners over, Noelle Micka walked to load the bases. Kym Silagyi's single scored two and Brittany Puzey followed with an infield single to give Nevada the 4-1 lead.
Holverson (25-9) cruised through five innings, yielding just one unearned run on three hits. She gave up a leadoff double in the sixth and was relieved by Darby. The freshman worked out of that jam and then pitched a scoreless seventh for her first save of the season.
Nevada had just six hits in the game but made the most of them. Patrick was key in the Pack scoring its first run of the game as the sophomore slammed a two-out double in the third and scored on Micka's RBI single.
Puzey extended her streak of reaching base safely to 32 straight games and in 51 of Nevada's 53 games.