Baseball Clinches the Series Over Northern Colorado
OGDEN – The Utah baseball team clinched the series against the Northern Colorado Bears with an 11-7 win at Lindquist Field on Sunday.
Christopher Rowan, Jr. led the team with three RBI hitting his sixth home run of the year. Rykker Tom also hit a home run and finished with two RBI.
Utah got off to a fast start scoring three runs in the first inning. Jaylon McLaughlin led things off with a single and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt. That setup Kai Roberts to knock McLaughlin in with a single, and the Utes followed that up with two more singles to score Roberts and take the lead. Utah added one more run to its lead with a double from Brock Rudy to go up 3-1 after the first inning.
Starter Kyle Robeniol found himself in some trouble in the second, but worked out of a bases loaded jam with one out to preserve the lead. With one out and the bases loaded, he got a strikeout and a groundout to keep Utah in the lead.
The Utes added another run in the third to go up 4-2.
From there, Northern Colorado took the lead in the sixth, but Utah responded right back scoring runs in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings.
Right after the Bears took the lead in the sixth, Tom stepped up to the plate and crushed a solo home run to left field to tie things up at seven.
In the seventh inning, the Utes generated two more runs on three hits. Rowan hit a sacrifice fly to give Utah the lead back and Tom came up clutch again smacking a double to left field to score Trey Clarkson from third.
Heading into the eighth up 7-5, Northern Colorado got a big two-run home run to tie the score at seven. Like the last couple of innings, Utah had a quick answer for them though.
To start the eighth, Shea Kramer got on first after he was hit by a pitch. After he got to second, McLaughlin knocked a single to center to put Utah back in front. The Utes weren't done in the eighth though as they scored four runs total. The big hit came when Matt Richardson hit a two-run double to left field to score two runs. Two batters later, Rowan hit his second sacrifice fly of the game putting up Utah 11-7 going to the ninth.
Zac McCleve came in for the ninth and got a big double play to end the game to clinch the series for Utah.
Robeniol pitched 4.0 innings to start the game and gave up four runs on six hits. Matthew Sox got the win moving his record to 2-1 on the season. He pitched 4.0 innings and gave up three runs on five hits. The three Utah pitchers combined to have 14 strikeouts for the game.
Utah totaled 15 hits with McLaughlin, Richardson and Clarkson each having three hits. Rowan and Tom both had two hits.
Utah and Northern Colorado will play the third game of the series on Monday with first pitch happening at noon at Lindquist Field.