Utes Drop Late Lead, Fall to BYU, 10-8

Friday, March 18

Salt Lake City (Spring Mobile)

6:00 PM

University of Utah

6-8, 1-1

BYU

9-8, 1-1

Brigham Young

Utah

3/18/2011 12:00 AM | Baseball

Box Score

March 18, 2011

Box Score

SALT LAKE CITY - A late scoring frenzy led to a 10-8 loss for the Utah baseball team against BYU on Friday evening.

Utah went into the ninth inning with a 5-4 lead before a pair of throwing errors on sacrifice bunts with one out led to the inning snowballing out of hand for the Utes, as BYU scored six runs to take a 10-5 lead. Ryan Bernal had the big hit of the inning for the Cougars with a three-run home run to right field.

The Utes rallied in the ninth inning with two outs. Gavin Green and James Brooks both singled and Michael Beltran walked, loading the bases for Ute All-American C.J. Cron. Cron doubled to deep left center, sending three runs across the plate and cutting the lead to 10-8. Shaun Cooper beat out a slow hit to the shortstop to put the winning run at the plate, but BYU reliever Kolton Mahoney got Cody Guymon to strike out and end the game.

The Utes out-hit the Cougars, 14-10, as Brooks, Cron, Cooper and Green all had three hits for the Utes.

"We didn't make the defensive plays tonight," Utah head coach Bill Kinneberg said. "I am proud of how we came back and had the winning run at home plate. Some nights that is going to happen and we have to make the next play correctly and take it one pitch at a time."

Reliever Tyler Wagner (1-1) got the loss for Utah, despite allowing no earned runs during his 1.1 innings of relief. Ute starter Zach Adams went 7.0 innings and had six strikeouts with three runs and five hits. Stephen Streich and Kesley Kondo also made brief appearances.

BYU got on the board early with a run in each of the first two innings. Stephen Wells scored on a wild pitch in the first and Wes Guenther hit a home run to left field in the second.

The Utes got their first runs of the game in the fourth. Cron and Cooper hit back-to-back doubles to lead off the inning and Trey Nielsen's well-placed ground out allowed Cooper to score, tying the game at 2-2.

Utah took the lead in the bottom of the fifth inning after Green doubled with one out to right center followed by a triple from Brooks. Utah continued to increase their lead in the bottom of the seventh off the bat of Nielsen, who scored on a sacrifice fly after a leadoff double, 4-2.

BYU rallied back to tie the game at 4-4 in the top of the eighth. Dane Nielsen tripled to lead off the inning and scored on a wild pitch before Wells hit a home run to even the score.

The Utes re-took the lead in the bottom of the eighth inning. Brooks led off the inning with a single. After Cron was intentionally walked, Cooper singled to send in Brooks for the go-ahead run before the ninth inning rally for both teams.

The two schools play the rubber match of the contest on Saturday, March 19, at 1:00 p.m. MT at Spring Mobile Ballpark.