April 20, 2008

GREELEY, Colorado - Utah Valley rallied late before dropping a 13-11 contest at Northern Colorado on Sunday. A day after the Wolverines (9-26-1) nearly lost a 13-run lead before holding off the Bears (14-23) by one run, UV nearly erased a nine-run deficit before the home team was able to prevail and force a split of the short two-game series.

The Wolverines took an early 3-0 lead but Northern Colorado scored a flurry of runs in the middle innings and built a 13-4 advantage after seven innings.

Utah Valley entered the ninth trailing 13-7 when Jace Brinkerhoff was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning. After a fly-out, Scott Croshaw singled to extend his hit streak to seven games before Kevin Arendse drove home Brinkerhoff with a single to right. AJ Palmer made it a three-run game when he tripled to left-center. Palmer then scored on a balk by Dan Kazell to trim the deficit to two runs.

But Kazell got Jake Rickenbach to fly out and struck out Tyler Garretson on a good curve ball to end the game and any hopes of a UV comeback.

The loss made it a 2-2 weekend for the Wolverines after also splitting a pair of games against Air Force.

Cole Anderson had a triple, double and a single as part of a three-hit day for the outfielder. Anderson led off the game with the triple and scored on Ryan Jones' RBI single.

Utah Valley plated two more in the second on RBI singles by Josh Hinckley and Anderson to take that 3-0 advantage.

Anderson finished the game 3-for-4 with two RBI and two runs scored while Hinckley was also 3-for-4 with two batted in and Arendse had three hits and scored three times.

The Bears tied it the third with two runs coming on a double off the bat of Jeff Horn. In the bottom of the fourth, Erik Hegsted delivered a two-run single to plate two during another three-run inning for UNC, putting the home team up 6-3.

After Adam Openshaw smacked a two-out double to right to score Anderson in the fifth to trim the lead to 6-4, Chad Murray and Kevin Sandberg had back-to-back two-out doubles for the Bears in the fifth push the score to 9-4.

The lead eventually reached 13-4 before the Wolverines scored three in the top of the eighth on RBI singles from Hinckley and Rickenbach and a sacrifice fly by Anderson.

Openshaw and Rickenbach had two hits apiece for UV while Hegsted had three hits and drove in three for UNC. Cory Morales also had three hits for the Bears while Murray, in addition to his two-run double, scored three runs while walking four times on the day.

Up next for the Wolverines is a series with Dixie State on Thursday and Saturday.