New Mexico adds to the long list of Mountain West baseball teams that showed a lot of good, a good amount of ugly, and ultimately, couldn’t pass the finish line of the conference tournament. Finishing in the middle of the standings and being the second-to-last team to make the tournament wasn’t stellar, but the Lobos had their moments of shine and put up solid offensive numbers.
Record: New Mexico ended the season with an overall record of 29-24-1 and a conference record of 12-11-1, good for fifth
place. The Lobos won its first round game of the MW Tournament over Nevada, but lost the next two, falling to SDSU and Air Force.
Highlight: The Lobos’ blistering 12-0 start and offensive explosion in non-conference play. New Mexico opened the season by winning its first 12 games, including a four-game sweep of Fordham in which the Lobos scored 68 runs. The series finale was a 24-5 victory, and they followed that by sweeping Northern Colorado and St. Thomas. Through the opening month, New Mexico looked like one of the most dangerous offensive teams in the West, building on a 2025 offense that had already been among the nation’s best. The fast start helped position the Lobos near the top of the Mountain West standings for much of the year.
Lowlight: The last four conference series matchups. Between April 17 and May 10, New Mexico played Nevada, Washington State, Air Force, and GCU. At the start of this timeline, the Lobos were 8-4-1 in conference play and had a great head of steam going. New Mexico then lost each of its last four series 2-1. It completely flipped the standings, allowing teams such as Air Force and Wazzu to fight their way back to the top.
Key stat: We’ll circle back to the 12-0 start because it’s simply an impressive key. While it didn’t mean anything toward conference play, a hot start to the season should never be ignored. The Lobos were also one of four teams in the conference to bat over .300, collecting 50 home runs and nearly 400 total RBIs as well. New Mexico also had two players named to the All-tournament Team in second baseman Luke Mansy and pitcher Ryan Castillo. Castillo earned the win in Thursday’s opener over Nevada, and Mansy batting a team-high .667 across three tournament games.
Season grade: B-
The non-conference schedule was kind to New Mexico, while conference games weren’t as friendly. A great start is hard to ignore, and the team still made the conference tournament and made a push, despite collecting only one win. In what will be a new Mountain West next year, I expect New Mexico to compete with teams such as Nevada and potentially GCU, but the Lobos struggled this season to take care of business over teams that will remain in the conference next season.
