Utah Valley traveled to St. George, Utah to face their bitter rivals, the Dixie State Trailblazers, in a three-game series this weekend to start WAC play. The Wolverines started the Old Hammer Rivalry off strong with a 6-4 win in game one, followed by a 4-7 defeat in game two on Friday, Mar. 18. UVU would lose their final game 5-13 to drop the series 1-2 on Saturday, Mar. 19.
Excellence was the matchup word, as Brooke Carter had a complete game and struck out ten batters in game one. Utah Valley would start the scoring with three runs in the second on hits from Laynee Betancur and Kalena Shepherd to take a 3-0 advantage.
The Wolverines would battle for the rest of the game scoring single runs in the fourth, fifth, and sixth. Dixie State put together their own offensive performance with four solo home runs in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth. The seventh inning started with a 6-4 lead in favor of UVU as Carter was able to finish the game and lead the Wolverines to a 6-4 victory. Betancur finished the game 3-for-3 with two runs and Shepherd drove in three runs on two hits.
Game two of the series started Utah Valley’s way when Madison Carr led off with a single, followed by an RBI double from Mikaela Thomson. Linnah Rebolledo’s single would drive Thomson home and start the Wolverines off with a 2-0 lead. The Trailblazers answered in the second when B. Rudd’s single sent M. Duryea home to cut into the lead 1-2. After a scoreless third, Dixie State scored five runs on six hits to take the advantage 6-2 in the bottom of the fourth. Carr scored on a single from Thomson in the fifth to chip into the lead 3-6, then K. Hardy’s ground out allowed Rebolledo to score in the sixth 4-6. However, the Wolverines allowed another run and were unable to score in the seventh, resulting in a 4-7 loss
The third and final game of the series started off hot for Utah Valley as Rebolledo crushed a home run in the first, and four more runs came in the second to give the Wolverines a 5-0 lead. The Trailblazers’ S. Clements answered with a three-run homer in the third 3-5. Dixie State went on to hold UVU scoreless while scoring 10 more runs of their own to win the game 13-5 and the series 2-1 on their home turf.
Utah Valley’s record stands at 10-9 with a WAC record of 1-2. The Wolverines face Weber State for the second time this season on Tuesday, Mar. 22 in Ogden, Utah at 4 p.m. MT.
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