Coach, New Mexico Kicked Down Another Door…
The New Mexico baseball team is the biggest story to come from the 2011 college baseball conference tournament weekend. Ray Birmingham‘s squad entered the Mountain West Conference Tournament 24 games under .500 and knowing their only chance to get into the NCAA Tournament was to win the whole thing.
That’s what they did.
The Lobos beat #3 seed BYU, #2 seed Utah and #1 seed TCU twice to garner the program’s second straight NCAA bid (and just their second bid since 1962 as well).
In this exclusive interview with Collegebaseball360.com Editor Sean Stires, Birmingham discusses his team’s run through the MWC, the 1-and-17 mark his team posted against the likes of Arizona State, Arizona and Oklahoma during the regular season, how that competition made them better, where his “kick down the door” mentality came from, and more.
The Lobos (20-39) are the #4 seed in the Tempe Regional and face the same Sun Devils they faced to open the season on Friday.
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Ray Birmingham,left, and Stanford head coach Mark Marquess go over ground rules with home plate umpire Paul Guille before the start of the 2010 NCAA Fullerton regional.
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