May 6, 2011

EDINBURG, Texas - Jeremy Gendlek tossed seven strong innings as Utah Valley took the opener of a four-game Great West Conference series, 5-2, at Texas-Pan American on Friday night.

Gendlek allowed only a single unearned run - in the first - and while he saw his streak of shutout innings end at 24, he still hasn't allowed an earned run in 31 innings during Great West play. He moved to 5-3 overall and 4-0 in conference.

"To have that performance against that type of a hitting club is outstanding because that's a good club over there," said head coach Eric Madsen of UTPA. "We had some clutch performances and our guys did a good job of staying focused and competing against a good team."

The Wolverines (20-20, 12-1) got some big two-out hits to score twice in the first when Goose Kallunki and Kai Hatch had back-to-back RBI singles.

The Broncs (19-20, 8-9) got a base hit from Angel Ibanez in the bottom of the first to get on the board.

In the fifth, Austin Heaps got another two-out base hit that drove home Cole McWhorter, who scored three times on the day and went 2-for-4. Heaps also went 2-for-4 with two RBI.

In the seventh, the Wolverines got a leadoff walk to Kirk Doxey and then a double from McWhorter before manufacturing two runs. Chris Benson grounded out to bring home Doxey before Heaps had a sac-fly to right that plated McWhorter.

In the bottom half of the seventh, Ibanez doubled with a man at first to put runners at second and third with two outs. Josh Swenson then came in and stranded both runners, striking out Vincent Mejia and getting Roger Bernal to foul out to Alex Exon before striking out Colton Van Komen looking to end the inning.

In the ninth, UTPA got a run on a single by Alex Carnall and brought Ibanez to the plate as the tying run with two outs. Freshman Ty Hansen then came out of the bullpen got Ibanez to ground out to Hatch at short to end the game and pick up his first save.

The series continues on Saturday with a doubleheader at 1 p.m. CT/12 p.m. MT.