Aggies seeded first for WAC baseball tourney

New Mexico State is the No. 1 seed i this week's Western Athletic Conference baseball tournament at HoHoKam Stadium in Mesa.

The Aggies (35-20, 11-7 WAC) tied Sacramento State (29-26) and Nevada (31-23) atop the WAC regular-season standings but earned the top seed based on head-to-head competition.

The tournament begins on Wednesday, but the Aggies have a first-round bye and won't play until 7 p.m. Thursday against the lowest-seeded winner of Wednesday's opening round.

Wednesday's schedule feature third-seeded Nevada against sixth-seeded Louisiana Tech (24-26) and fourth-seeded Hawai'i (30-23) vs. fifth-seeded Fresno State (25-25). The double-elimination tournament will conclude Saturday at 7 p.m. or Sunday at noon, with the winner earning a guaranteed berth in the NCAA Tournament.

The Aggies have a four-game winning streak and seem to have recovered well from a stretch in which they lost nine of 10 games over a three-week stretch.

The Aggies head into postseason with a .306 team batting average (No. 20 nationally) and have scored 449 runs (third-best nationally).

Junior Zac Fisher leads with WAC with a .360 average and 57 RBI, and senior Tanner Waite leads the conference in runs (53) and on-base percentage (.485). Parker Hipp is hitting .345 with 49 RBI.

The starting pitching chores have been split among Ryan Beck (5-5, 4.08 ERA), Adam Mott (6-2, 4.58) and Michael Ormseth (8-2, 5.16).