Shortly before a bad April-fools-joke blanketed the outfield grass with a thin, yet frigid layer of snow, the UVU baseball team fell short in its quest to knock off the University of Utah 9-6 at Brent Brown Ballpark in Orem. The game, which was supposed to be held in Salt Lake, was moved to Utah Valley.
The Utes jumped out to a 3-0 lead early, but the lead was quickly erased in the fifth inning when Jake Rickenbach laced a two-run triple scoring Kevin Arendse and Billy Burgess propelling the Wolverines to a 4-3 advantage. Later in the seventh inning, with the bases loaded, Jace Brinkerhoff added two more runs to the UVU lead with a two-run double down the first baseline all the way to the wall.
Unfortunately for the Wolverines, the 6-3 lead they took into the bottom of the seventh inning, wouldn’t hold as Utah came storming back. UVU gave up four walks and a hit batter in the second half of the frame to assist the Ute rally. Utah scored six runs to regain a 9-6 lead and held on for the victory.
Although down, but not quite out, UVU manufactured a rally in the bottom of the ninth. Brinkerhoff reached on an infield single and Chris Benson hit a ground-rule double to right. After the Utes walked Sage Thorpe to load the bases, bringing the winning run to the plate for UVU, Utah pitcher Greg Krouse struck out the next two UVU batters to secure the win and record the save.
UVU will have another crack at the Utes on April 7th when Utah will again make the trip to Orem to take on the Wolverines.
