Nevada will host WAC baseball tournament

As expected, the Western Athletic Conference announced Tuesday morning that Nevada would host the 2007 WAC Baseball Tournament.

The decision was made by members of the WAC Council. It was the last of three votes taken on the matter. The tournament will be played May 24-27 at Peccole Park.

Nevada was expected to host last year's tournament, but Pack officials pulled out of the bidding process because they weren't sure whether the lights would be installed in time.

Nevada coach Gary Powers was obviously overjoyed at the news.

"We're excited," he said. "Financially, it saves us a lot of money. From a player's point of view, they would rather play at home than on the road. You get a greater fan base for your program at home."

Jeff Hurd, the senior associate commissioner for the WAC, said he would be visiting Reno in the near future to see what Nevada officials need to do to make Peccole Park tournament ready. He will be working closely with Powers and Woody Barry, who will be helping Hurd run the tournament next year.

He said that getting enough working area for the media would be near the top of the list. Currently, the Peccole Park press box has only six or seven seats, which isn't near enough judging by media attendance in Fresno last year. One of the things that made Fresno State attractive was that there were two areas for pre-game batting practice. Nevada doesn't have that kind of space at Peccole.

Powers said he already has worked out a solution to the problem, however.

"We're going to have teams take batting practice on the intramural field," Powers said. "We have the field turf there, and they will be able to take groundballs off the bat during batting practice like they would normally."

• Nevada signed its eighth recruit Tuesday, inking Consumnes River College pitcher Stephen Bautista to a national letter of intent to play for the Pack in 2008.

"Stephen is another of the quality athletes we have signed during the early period," Powers said. "He will have two years of junior college experience by the time he gets to our campus which will be a big plus for us since the other seven recruits were high school players.

"I feel my staff did a great job and we have signed a great class during the early signing period. We may add an additional player or two. But we are mostly finished until the spring."

Bautista, a 6-foot-3 right-hander, was 6-3 with a 3.12 ERA last spring. he struck out 59 and walked 32 in 66 1/3 innings.

Bautista pitched for Elk Grove High School, and was an all-Delta League selection.

• Contact Darrell Moody at dmoody@nevadaappeal.com, or by calling (775) 881-1281