By Marissa Scott
With the hottest streak in the conference, San Jose State baseball heads to San Diego to play San Diego State in the Mountain West Championship starting Thursday.
In its last 17 conference games, SJSU has gone 13-4 to move from the No. 7 spot to the No. 3 spot.
The Spartans (26-28, 16-14 MW) faced the Aztecs (36-19, 18-12 MW) six times through the season and went 2-4.
In their most recent series on May 11-13, the Spartans took two of four and scored 14 runs against SDSU.
The Spartans are sending out their strongest players against the Aztecs.
Junior left hander Andrew Mitchel, a probable starter, is SJSU’s strongest pitcher. He holds a 3.79 ERA over 80.2 innings pitched and has the second most strikeouts in the conference with 92.
Five Spartan starters have accounted for 64 percent of the teams’ RBIs and continue to shine.
Senior first baseman Shane Timmons, who was most recently crowned Mountain West Player of the Week, surpassed the school’s homerun record at 26 and has contributed to many of the wins over their red-hot streak.
In the Aztecs’ last 20 games, they post a 14-6 record and have hit a .315 batting average as a team.
Senior outfielder Chase Calabuig leads the team with a .358 batting average and tops the conference with 51 hits in conference play.
SDSU clinched its 18th-consecutive postseason appearance and has won each of its last two tournament-opening games.
Friday’s conference tournament games will be No. 1 Nevada against No. 4 UNLV and No. 2 SDSU against No. 3 SJSU.
The Mountain West implemented the four-team double elimination tournament in 2016 and the Spartans didn’t make it last year.
The first pitch is slated for 6 p.m. at Tony Gwynn Stadium. The Nevada and UNLV game is slated for 1:30 p.m.
The winner of each game will face each other, while the other two teams will vie for third and fourth place.
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