April 30, 2010
OREM, Utah - Utah Valley set a new school record for home runs in a season by slugging four long balls in a 19-11 win over Texas-Pan American on Friday night at Brent Brown Ballpark.
The Wolverines (22-14, 12-1 in GWC) now have 53 home runs on the year, passing the old mark of 50 set in the 2005 season. UVU scored in every inning while tying a school record with its eighth straight win to open the four-game Great West Conference series.
"We did a great job at the plate, scoring every inning," said UVU head coach Eric Madsen. "They (UTPA) swung the bat well and they play with a lot of energy, but we just kept coming at them every inning."
Kevin Arendse was 4-for-4 with three doubles and a home run, the second time in the last three games that he has doubled three times. Billy Burgess finished 5-for-6 with a home run, two doubles and five runs batted in and went back-to-back with Chris Benson the eighth. Benson's home run was a tape-measure shot into the pond over both fences in left and gave him 50 RBI on the year.
Jace Brinkerhoff finished 3-for-5 with a home run and three RBI, tying him with Goose Kallunki for the team lead with nine home runs. Austin Heaps also had a big night going 4-for-5 with three batted in as Utah Valley tied a season high with 23 hits.
Ryan Chadwick improved to 4-1 after going 3.1 innings before Sam Armstrong came in an pitched 3.2 scoreless innings and striking out five, including the side in the eighth, to earn his first save.
"Sam came in and got us out of a tough inning and cruised the rest of the way," said Madsen. "The way he came in and attacked the bottom of the zone was huge for him to do. It was good to see because they do swing the bat well."
The Broncs (14-23, 3-9) got three hits each from Angel Ibanez, Garrett Bivone and Ryan Vest. Vest drove in three runs as did Stuart MacInnes. Ibanez and Mike McCarthy both homered for UTPA.
Trailing 4-2 after an inning and a half, the Wolverines batted thru the order, scoring five times to take a 7-4 lead. Brinkerhoff had two RBI in the inning and also scored on a wild pitch.
The teams traded blows again as the Broncs answered with three in the third to tie, UVU scored two in the bottom half and UTPA added two more in the fourth to tie it again at nine.
With two outs in the bottom of the fourth, Kallunki tripled to center before Arendse hit his home run just right of centerfield to put UVU up 11-9.
Chadwick put up a zero in the fifth and the Wolverines came back with three in bottom half of the inning to give themselves some breathing room. Benson hit a sac-fly before Heaps delivered a key two-out, bases loaded single to score Burgess and Kallunki to make it 14-9.
The Broncs scored twice in the sixth but wouldn't score again as Armstrong got McCarthy to ground into a 4-6-3 double play with the bases loaded to end the inning.
Brinkerhoff homered on a big fly in the sixth, Benson scored on a wild pitch in the seventh before the Wolverines' third back-to-back home runs of the season in the eighth.
Utah Valley finished the month of April 14-4, its most successful month in school history. The series continues on Saturday with a doubleheader beginning at 1 p.m. MT.
