April 10, 2010
OREM, Utah - Utah Valley stayed perfect in Great West Conference play with a doubleheader sweep of North Dakota, 10-6 and 15-9, on Saturday at Brent Brown Ballpark. The win moves the Wolverines to 13-12 overall and 3-0 in conference and is the baseball program's best 25-game start in the school's seven-year NCAA Division I history.
Holding a slim 3-2 lead late in the first game, Billy Burgess continued his remarkable success with the bases loaded, belting his fourth career grand slam in the sixth inning of the seven-inning contest. The home run gave UVU an 8-2 lead and three batters later Goose Kallunki added a two-run blast to make it a seven-run inning.
"The guys really had to bare down and stay within their approach today and I thought they did a good job of that," said UVU head coach Eric Madsen.
Burgess is 7-for-9 with four home runs and 24 RBI in his career with the bases loaded.
The Fighting Sioux (4-18, 0-3) added four runs in the top of the seventh, making Burgess' slam the difference in the game.
Blake Krahenbuhl (3-1) got the win after tossing 6.1 innings. Thru six his only blemish was a first-inning two-run home run by Josh Ray before the freshman pitcher blanked UND over the next five frames.
The Wolverines finished with 11 hits in the opener with two each coming from Jake Rickenbach, Jace Brinkerhoff, Burgess and Cole McWhorter. Burgess finished with five RBI in the game while McWhorter and Rickenbach both scored twice.
Chris Benson was 1-for-4 in the game before going 3-for-5 second game, pushing his hitting streak to 23 games, tying his own school record.
Benson had an RBI single as part of a seven-run third inning in the second game of the twin bill. Austin Heaps had a two-run double before Kevin Arensde singled home a run and Kallunki capped the big inning with his second home run of the day.
All seven runs in the inning were unearned after two Sioux errors extended the inning.
North Dakota got four of the runs back in the fourth, two coming on a Jake Magner home run. Magner finished the second game with four hits and six runs batted in.
The Wolverines answered all four runs in the bottom of the inning. Rickenbach started it with a solo shot to left-center before Burgess struck again with a three-run homer to right, giving him eight RBI over the doubleheader.
From there Utah Valley kept a five-run cushion the rest of the way and will go for the four-game sweep on Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m.
Ryan Chadwick got the win after allowing three runs on eight hits in 4.2 innings out of the bullpen. UVU finished with 17 hits with both Arendse and Kallunki finishing with three hits along with Benson. Kallunki drove in three in the game and five over the course of the doubleheader.
Also in the game, the Wolverines tied a school record with five double plays including one in each of the fourth, fifth and sixth innings.
"Our defense was outstanding today. It really made a big difference. We turned some nice double plays and made some defensive stops when we needed it," said Madsen.
