UTRGV baseball (14-16, 6-7) wins on the mound and with the bat 6-1 as they take game one of the series against Utah Valley University (5-21, 3-10) Friday night at the UTRGV Baseball Stadium.
The Wolverines were threatening to score early as they had runners on second and first but the Vaqueros quickly turned a 6-4-3 double play.
UTRGV senior starting pitcher Kevin Stevens would get senior first baseman Kade Poulsen to pop up to keep the score knotted at nil.
Stevens would dominate early by striking out six of the first 11 batters he faced, preventing a Wolverine from reaching first until the fifth inning on a junior catcher Drew Sims five pitch walk.
In the bottom of the third with runners on the corner and two outs, graduate catcher Conrado Diaz stepped up to the plate and knocked in a run with a roller to right field to give the Vaqueros a 1-0 lead.
The runs would continue to come in for the Vaqueros in the fifth and would lead 3-0 as graduate left fielder Elijah Alexander hit his first homerun of the season, a two-run shot that would end up in the Wolverine bullpen over the leftfield wall.
The Vaqueros would put up three more runs in the fifth inning as Diaz brought in a runner with a hit to left center and Alexander would hit his second home run of the night, 400 feet over the center field wall.
In a postgame news conference via Zoom, Alexander explained the feelings of the ball cracking off the bat..
“Off the bat I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s probably one of the hardest hit balls I’ve ever hit in my life,’” Alexander said. “I just had to sprint out of the box cause the wind was cutting across and I was not sure if it was going to get out or not but I looked up, went over, and I was just super excited to get that second one out of here.”
Utah Valley senior starting pitcher Jesse Schmit’s day would come to an end after 4.2, allowing eight hits, giving up six earned runs and striking out four, suffering his fifth loss of the season.
Wolverine Head Coach Eric Madsen, having to go to his bullpen early, brought in junior left handed reliever Logan Petet to record the final out of the fifth. Petet would not surrender a run the rest of the game striking out two and walking one Vaquero on an efficient 46 pitches.
Stevens would continue to locate the strike zone, tying his career-high, by downing 12 Wolverines and in eight innings, only allowed two hits and walks, only surrendering one unearned run in the eighth on a throwing error from graduate shortstop Christian Sepulveda to first.
UTRGV Head Coach Derek Matlock explained how the performance from Stevens on the mound set up his offense, who had been struggling, up for success.
“Steven did a great job with keeping them shutdown the whole game,” Matlock said. “That always gives a chance offensively to get things going.”
Graduate closer Ricky Arevalo would combine with Stevens to hold the Wolverines to a three-hit, one-run performance.
The Vaqueros will be back in action against the Wolverines for a 1 p.m. Saturday doubleheader and Matlock wants the veteran pitching staff to carry over the momentum from tonight’s performance.
“It’s going to be [graduate pitcher Max] Balderrama going the first game and I hope he goes [a complete game],” he said. “We need him to go in there and get a CG on the first game and we got [sophomore pitcher Colten] Davis and [graduate pitcher Kevin] Palm, if they went CG together, I’ll be happy if we didn’t even touch the bullpen. Starting pitching is what wins championships.”
You can watch the Vaqueros live on the WAC Digital Network.
Twitter: @Radio_Rubio
