SALT LAKE CITY—It took 10 innings and four and a half hours, but the UVU baseball team completed the season sweep of the Utah Utes by a final score of 12-11 at Smith’s Ballpark Tuesday night. The Wolverines posted four runs in the top of the 10th inning after a two-run triple from Paul Estrada sparked a rally with nobody out.
The game ended as Kody Davis, representing the tying run for Utah, attempted to steal second base on a ball in the dirt, but Zac Willis corralled the loose ball and tossed it to Greyson Bogden, who made the tag for the final out.
“That was not a pretty game,” said UVU coach Eric Madsen “We pitched it good at times when we needed to but there was a lot of slop between that. We didn’t really play great defensively either, so to find a way to overcome some of those things is great.”
On a night where 23 runs crossed the plate and 17 pitchers toed the rubber, UVU broke through in the second inning on a single up the middle by Justin Erlandson to score Paul Estrada for a 1-0 lead. Utah answered a pair of UVU runs in the top of the third with three runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning for a 4-3 lead.
Trevor Howell tied the game at four with a double to left to score Jordan Schlehuber in the fourth. The Utes answered yet again with a solo home run to right by Kellen Marruffo to take a 5-4 lead in the bottom half of the inning, his second of the season against UVU.
Craig Brinkerhoff put the Wolverines ahead 6-5 with a two-run blast of his own to left center in the top of the fifth. UVU piled on two more in the sixth with back-to-back RBIs by Willis and Bogden to take an 8-5 lead.
Marruffo struck again the in sixth with a two-run double down the right field line to bring the Utes within 8-7. UVU held the lead entering the ninth inning, and Utah plated Chandler Anderson as Josh Rose poked a single to right to tie the game and send it to extra innings.
The Wolverines blew the game open with a four-run 10th inning behind a two-run triple from Estrada, a single from Erlandson to drive in Estrada and an RBI-double from Howell, in order. Utah threatened with three runs of their own in the bottom of the 10th, but Willis and Bogden put the Utes away by retiring Davis at second.
UVU will continue conference play by hosting Seattle U this weekend with the first of a three-game series coming Friday at 6 p.m. MT at Brent Brown Ballpark.
