Baseball Drops Pac-12 Series Opener at Stanford
STANFORD – A pitching duel broke out Friday night between the Utah baseball team and Stanford Cardinal, but Stanford edged Utah in the end with two key runs in the eighth inning to give them the lead and eventually the win.
Justin Kelly went 7.0 innings and only allowed two runs on seven hits. The seven innings pitched is the longest outing of his career.
The Cardinal built a 2-0 lead with one run in the second and sixth innings. Brendan Beck took the mound for Stanford and held Utah in check all night until the sixth inning.
Vinny Zavolta led the inning off with a solo home run to bring Utah within one run of Stanford. Right after Zavolta's homer, Matt Richardson singled to left field. He stole second base and advanced to third on an infield hit from Jayden Kiernan. With two outs, a wild pitch brought home Richardson to take the lead 2-1. Stanford had a quick response scoring one run in the bottom half of the sixth to tie the game up at two.
After both teams got through the seventh inning, Zavolta drew a walk to start the eighth. He advanced to second after a sacrifice bunt from Richardson, but the Utes couldn't advance him any further.
Ian MacIver came out of the bullpen to start the eighth. Stanford got the first three batters on base with two singles and a walk to take a 3-2 lead. Dustyn Schramm came in for MacIver and got out of the inning, but not before Stanford scored one more run to go up 4-2.
In the ninth, Kai Roberts got a single, but that's all Utah could muster ultimately falling 4-2.
MacIver took the loss on the night moving his record to 0-1 on the season.
Kyle Robeniol will take the mound for Utah in Saturday's game against Stanford. First pitch will be at 3 p.m.