Nevada baseball didn’t have a walk-off win this season entering last week’s series against Fresno State.

But a pair of back-to-back walk-offs has put Nevada (29-19 overall, 15-9 MW) in a three-way tie atop the Mountain West standings with the Bulldogs and New Mexico. With six games remaining in the regular-season, Nevada is in prime position to win at least a share of the MW regular-season title heading into this weekend’s series with San Diego State, which starts Friday at 6 p.m. at Peccole Park.

“We haven’t played San Diego State yet, but Fresno State and New Mexico are some of the most complete teams we’ve played on our schedule this year,” head coach Jake McKinley said. “I think Fresno State just does such a good job on the mound. Traditionally they play such great defense, their lineup is balanced. More so than playing catch up in the standings or having a come-from-behind win, whatever it was, that was a good team. That’s a team with a lot of talent. That’s the team that can do a lot of things to beat you and to win three games against them, I think it’s definitely good for confidence, and I think this group is cautious of being overconfident. I don’t think that’ll be a thing. If you’re gonna go win postseason games, you’ve gotta do some things in the regular-season that gives you some confidence to be able to do that.”

Nevada is in search of its first MW regular-season title since 2021, which would be the first under McKinley, who is in his third season as head coach. Nevada is in search of its first MW Tournament berth since 2022 after missing out on the four-team tournament last season via tiebreaker with Fresno State and San Jose State. This year, six teams get into the tournament, with San Diego State in a four-way tie at the bottom of the Mountain West standings with San Jose State, Air Force and temporary MW member Washington State. That makes this a crucial series for both teams.

“I’ve been playing all sorts of hypotheticals in my head of what other people are doing and how many games we probably need to win to get this thing to the finish line, and I need to caution myself away from that,” McKinley said. “I said to the guys last Saturday when we won, it’s really easy to get caught up in sweeps, winning series, those types of things, and it wasn’t about sweeping Fresno. It was about just winning the game in front of us, which happened to be the Sunday game and it just happened to be for a sweep. But it was just about winning the games in front us.

“I think with San Diego State we’re really taking that same approach. You can’t do things like preserve a guy out of your bullpen so you can go win a series on Saturday. If you have a chance to go win the game, you gotta go win a game. So it’s all gas, no brakes. The game in the front is the most important game from a decision making and a coaching perspective. I owe it to this team to this fan base to this community to do everything we possibly can to win the game in front of us, and that’s the only thing that matters.”

The Wolf Pack will honor its nine seniors ahead of Sunday’s first pitch against the Aztecs, which includes some of Nevada’s most tenured players in shortstop Michael Ball and Sparks native and right-handed pitcher Casey Burfield. Burfield and Ball began their careers at Nevada under then-head coach TJ Bruce in 2022.

“It’s been really special the past four years,” Burfield said. “A lot of great community. It’s amazing getting a strike three call and off the field hearing the crowd roar. That’s a memory I’ll always remember for the rest of my life. Great staff, everyone has treated me amazing here. I have no complaints about this program or this university. It’s a great place to be. One thing I think is special about this team is we have a lot of people from last year that remember falling one game short, so we take each day as day one and treat it as day one. We understand the importance of each game, which I feel like is pretty important for us. A lot of people attack the day like that, and I feel like we’re pretty successful because of that.”

Added Ball: “It’s hard to even put into words. I came out here as a 19-year-old and I’ve grown so much as a human, spiritually, mentally, just everything. I’m just super, super grateful that Reno took a chance on me and I’ve gotten to do what I love here. I was actually gonna leave. I was in the portal after my first year here. I wasn’t planning on coming back, then the coaching change happened, so I was, like, ‘I’ll give it a second chance,’ and I’ve absolutely loved every second of it since.”