Photo by Mykah Heaton
Orem — A huge crowd at Brent Brown Ballpark watched as UVU hosted in-state foe BYU at Brent Brown Ballpark Tuesday night. The Cougars were able to continue their success against UVU as the pitching got rattled in the mid-week match-up and the Wolverines lost 8-3.
Ondrej Sebek got the start for the Wolverines and from the beginning he was rattled and allowed a single scoring a run for BYU. In the second inning, the Cougars unloaded on Sebek, hitting a two-run homer to right field to increase the score to 5-0. Paxton Schultz came in for Sebek in the second inning and he gave up another run to make the score 6-0.
“It would be nice to have it go differently early,” head coach Eric Madsen said. “I felt like our guys had some chances to knock in some runs and do some things but didn’t do it. So, It’s disappointing in the way that we played.”
UVU used three pitchers going into the third inning before Eric Olguin came in to pitch the third. Olguin came in and saved some more damage by leaving the bases loaded in the top of the third. The defense helped the pitchers with some great grabs out in the outfield.
UVU threatened in the bottom of the fourth inning, but Zac Willis was caught at home to end the inning. Madsen used the bullpen heavily throughout the game. The pitching kept the Cougars under control with three straight scoreless innings.
The Wolverines jumped onto the board with a sacrifice fly by Willis and Jackson Overlund continued the scoring with a deep triple to center field, scoring Howell from second. Overlund scored on a groundout to second bridging the gap to three runs.
BYU added another run in the seventh inning to make the lead 7-3. The Cougars kept the Wolverines scoreless for three straight innings and then they added to their lead in the ninth with a sacrifice fly to right field.
The Wolverines couldn’t get anything going in the ninth and UVU suffered a tough loss to the in state foe 8-3.
Howell had quite the night as he went 4-4 with four singles and adding to the rally in sixth inning.
UVU will go to Cal State Bakersfield for a three-game series beginning Thursday with first pitch set for 7 p.m. MDT. The Wolverines are now 11-20 for the year.
