Utah Valley State vs. South Dakota State
Location: Parkway Crossing Stadium, Orem, Utah
Date: April 22, 4pm (DH) & April 23, 1pm (DH)
Series Record: 1st Meeting
Live Audio: To listen to this weekend's games live online click HERE

What's on Tap:
The rescheduled grand opening for Parkway Crossing Stadium will take place this weekend as the Wolverines host fellow Division-I Independent South Dakota State. The two teams will play two doubleheaders beginning with Friday at 4:00pm followed by Saturday at 1:00pm. There will be many festivities during the grand opening, including fireworks following Friday's games.

Wolverine Update:
Utah Valley State is coming off of the best win in the program-??s two-year history as they beat neighbor to the South BYU on Monday night, 7-4. The win was the first ever over the Cougars and it broke a five game losing streak.

Kyle Tash threw a complete game for the Wolverines, the first complete game of his career, while Nick Connor was 4-4 at the plate with two assists in right field, including a great throw to get Adrian Molina out trying to go from 1st to 3rd on a single to right.

Kory Drew had the biggest hit of the game when he singled home two runs in the bottom of the 8th inning to stretch the lead to five. In the 9th inning with the score at 7-3, Apana Nakayama came up with the bases loaded for BYU, and singled home one run but a base running error allowed the Wolverine catcher Cory Newton to tag Molina out in a rundown to end the game.

Utah Valley State traveled to Salt Lake City for a game at Utah on Tuesday, but Mother Nature threw a wrench in the plans. With the score tied 2-2 in the top of the 2nd, the game was postponed. The teams will try to finish the game at a later date.

Quick Hits:
- After dropping their first five games against in-state opponents Southern Utah, BYU and Utah, the Wolverines have won five out of their last eight and now hold a 5-8 record against those schools with five games remaining.

- Nick Connor is quickly making his way up the ladder in team batting. He had a five hit game against Utah last week and four hit games against Sac State last Saturday and on Monday against BYU. He is currently 2nd on the team, with a .359 average.

- Utah Valley State is a team with a lot of power, especially compared to this weekend-??s opponent. The Wolverines have hit 41 home runs on the season, compared to just 15 by SDSU. The Jackrabbits 15 long bombs is just two more than UV Sophomore Dan Bulow has.

Division-I Independents:
This weekend's games against South Dakota State will close out the D-I Independent portion of Utah Valley State's 2005 schedule. During 2005, the Wolverines are 3-8 against other Independent schools with the wins coming against North Dakota State (2) and Northern Colorado. Their losses have come to Northern Colorado, UC Davis (3) and Sacramento State (4).

No Power Outage Here:
Dan Bulow continues to blast the ball for the Wolverines. The sophomore leads all Division-I Independent players with 13 home runs on the year. He has hit the home runs in just 113 at-bats, averaging a home run nearly every 8.5 times he steps to the plate and is averaging .38 home runs per game, which is good enough to tie him for 5th nationally.

Scouting the Competition:
South Dakota State is coming off of a tough loss against Big 10 school Minnesota on Wednesday when the Jackrabbits took the Gophers to extra innings before falling 19-13 in 10 innings. SDSU is 10-25 on the season and are led in hitting by Senior Greg Geary. Geary leads the team in batting (.315) home runs (6) and RBI (34).

On Deck:
Following this weekend the Wolverines will have just one game next week against Utah on Tuesday night at Parkway Crossing Stadium at 7:00pm. It will be a deserved rest for the team before they begin the toughest part of the their schedule the following week.

They begin the week of May 2-8 by hosting BYU on the 2nd followed by a match-up with Utah the next afternoon. The following morning the team will fly to Tempe, Arizona and play national powerhouse Arizona State that evening. Following a day off on Thursday the Wolverines will play three games with another perennial national contender in Arizona beginning Friday in Tucson.