UTRGV baseball (15-17, 7-8) falls in 11 innings 4-6 in the second game of a doubleheader against Utah Valley University (6-22, 4-11) Saturday evening at the UTRGV Baseball Stadium.
Wolverine freshman center fielder Andrew Hacker launched a two-run shot over the left field wall for the lead off of Vaquero junior reliever Ricky Gerik Jr. for his first-career trip around the diamond.
On the season, Gerik has only pitched four innings in six appearances out of the bullpen with a 20.25 ERA coming into this game.
Compared to his work in the shortened 2020 season when Gerik was consistently called upon by Head Coach Derek Matlock and often delivered with season stats of .135 opponent batting average in 11.2 innings of work with a 1.54 ERA.
In a postgame news conference via Zoom, Matlock explained that Gerik is currently in a slump but wants to continue to give his talented reliever opportunities to get back on track.
“He’s trying to get out of a funk,” Matlock said. “He’s having a tough time doing that. He’s getting in the way of himself by throwing balls in the middle of the plate. That’s something he didn’t do last year and we’re trying to get him going again, its just not working out for us. It’s been frustrating but we’ll keep fighting, working him and getting him better.”
The Vaqueros also committed two costly errors in the eight that scored two unearned runs that allowed the Wolverines to take a 3-2 lead.
Matlock expressed his frustration of having miscues in high leverage situations, as the team is averaging 1.4 errors per game from the 1.05 average from their 2018-19 Western Athletic Conference (WAC) Championship season.
“They’re always in a big moment,” Matlock said. “It’s frustrating from older kids that are really good defenders, they’re really good players on defense.”
Graduate shortstop Christian Sepulveda led the way offensively for the Vaqueros with a RBI sac-fly in the fifth to even the game one and with a RBI-single in the ninth to send the game to extras knotted at three.
The Wolverines knocked in a run with a senior first baseman Kade Poulsen single to take a 4-3 lead in the 10th inning.
The Vaqueros countered and even the game with a graduate left fielder Elijah Alexander RBI-single to center field.
Freshman reliever Devin Smith would pick up his first career-win as a Wolverine throwing an inning of relief allowing one hit and unearned run while walking and striking out one Vaquero.
UTRGV will close out the four-game series against Utah Valley noon Sunday as Matlock is looking to pick up a series win before heading into a 12-day period with only one game.
“We got to do a good job of coming in tomorrow, pounding the strike zone, playing defense and try to get ourselves a win going into a two-week break,” he said.
Watch the Utah Valley vs. UTRGV game live on the WAC Digital Network.
Twitter: @Radio_Rubio
