March 27, 2006

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Opponent: Northwest Nazarene 
Dates: March 28, 2006
Location: Orem, Utah 
Times: 12:00pm (doubleheader)
Live Audio: Click HERE

Opponent: Southern Utah 
Dates: March 30-April 1, 2006
Location: Orem, Utah 
Times: 7pm/7pm/1pm (doubleheader)
Live Audio: Click HERE

What's on Deck ... 
Utah Valley State returns home after a 12-day, nine-game road trip to the Pacific Coast to host Northwest Nazarene and Southern Utah this week beginning Tuesday at Noon against NNU.

Southern Utah is in Orem beginning Thursday at 7:00pm followed by a single game Friday at 7:00pm and a doubleheader on Saturday beginning at 1:00pm.

The recent road trip had the Wolverines at Sacramento State, San Francisco and #16 Oregon State.

The Wolverines finished the trip 2-9 and have lost six in a row, including sweeps at West Coast Conference opponent San Francisco and the reigning Pac-10 champions Oregon State.

In the mid-week series at San Francisco, senior Brett Guerrero made the first start of his career and threw a strong 7.1 innings despite taking the loss in a 2-0 Don win. 

Patrick McGuigan and Jeff Gordon combined on the shutout for USF. It was the third time this season that UV has been held scoreless.

In the second game of the series, San Francisco jumped out to a 4-0 lead after two innings, but in the top of the third the Wolverines got back into the game thanks to a three-run home run from sophomore Adam Openshaw.

After the Dons regained the lead a two-run fifth propelled UV back in front. The Wolverines held the lead until the bottom of the eighth when USFís Zach Kim hit a two-run homer to right to give the Dons a 7-6 lead and the win.

In the weekend series at Oregon State the theme was basically the same for all three games. The Beavers would jump out to an early lead, Utah Valley would fight to get back into the game before OSU would pull away in the end.

In the series opener UV trailed 4-0 after allowing three unearned runs in the bottom of the second. The Wolverines came all the way back in the third though when they put together four straight two-out hits off of All-American Dallas Buck, taking a 5-4 lead. 

Oregon State would come back to scatter three runs, all on sac-fly RBIís and hold off UV 7-5. 

After a 9-4 OSU win in game two, game three began with a big first inning from the Beavers as they pushed three across to take an early lead.

Utah Valley eventually trailed 7-1 before fighting back to get within 7-6 after a four-run seventh. The Beavers would add two in the bottom of the inning and four more in the eighth as they went on to the series sweep.

Scouting the Opposition ... 
Freshman Chris Benson leads the team with a .375 average in his first season of college baseball. He spent his high school days playing for Mountain View High School in Orem.

Dan Bulow has a team-high three home runs and 23 runs batted in while posting a .312 batting average.

Adam Openshaw has been a pleasant surprise so far this season as he is tied with Eli Slesk for the team lead in hits (32) and is hitting .348 with two home runs and 14 RBI.

Freshman Kyle Beecher is leading the pitching staff with a 2.77 ERA in 13 innings of work so far this season.

Starter Kam Mickolio leads the starting rotation with a 4.31 ERA that has dropped like an anchor with some excellent recent performances.

In his last four appearances, Mickolio is 2-0 with a 1.66 ERA including a five-hit shutout at Sac State on March 17th. He also beat UC Davis 4-2 as he went eight innings to earn the win.

In his most recent start at Oregon State, Mickolio was bitten by some spotty defense. He went five innings and allowed two earned runs as the game was knotted at five before Mother Nature forced suspension of the game until the following day.

Scouting the Opposition ... 
Utah Valley and Northwest Nazarene met previously in 2004 with the two teams splitting four games at NNU. The Crusaders, from Nampa, Idaho, are members of the NCAA Division-II Great Northwest Athletic Conference.

The Crusaders are led at the plate by Harold Schulz, who is batting .441 with 12 RBI. Tyson Burkhart leads NNU with four home runs while Eric Duke is hitting .298 with three homer and a team-high .561 slugging percentage.

The pitching staff is led by starter Nick Patee, who is 4-2 with a 3.02 ERA. Patee has struck out 31 hitters in 41.2 innings of work and has one shutout on his resume this season.

Southern Utah is off to a great start in 2006 and recently took two out of three from Air Force after pounding BYU 17-8 in last week's action. 

SUU (12-7) has won five of its last six games and holds a 3-1 edge against the Wolverines so far this season. 

UNLV transfer Robbie Richards has hit an impressive five home runs and 19 RBI to lead the team in just 12 games so far this season. He is also hitting a team high .412 and is slugging 1.000. 

As a team the T-Birds are batting .318 and have 10 players hit .300 or higher.

Up Next ... 
Utah Valley State will take on Utah four times next week with each team hosting the other twice. UV will be at Utah on Tuesday at 3:00pm before hosting the Utes Thursday at 7:00pm. They head back to Salt Lake City for a matchup at 3:00pm on Friday with the week concluding Saturday at 1:00pm in Orem.