LONG BEACH, Calif. – Utah Valley University got into the win column with a much-needed 8-3 victory at Long Beach State on Sunday afternoon at Blair Field. The game lasted just north of four hours and consisted of 19 walks including three coming with the bases loaded.

The Wolverine pitching staff shook off 12 of the walks, limiting much of the damage by surrendering just four hits on the day. Starter Patrick Wolfe took a no-hitter into the sixth inning before surrendering a single to Daniel Jackson. Wolfe (1-1) got the win after allowing two runs (one earned) while walking seven in five-plus innings.
 
Coming off of Tommy John surgery in 2014, freshman Jake Mayer got six crucial outs to help preserve the lead in his collegiate debut. Mayer entered with the bases loaded and nobody out with a 4-2 lead in the seventh. He struck out Jackson looking and, after a walk brought the Dirtbags (5-2) within a run, avoided any further damage by getting David Banuelos and Zack Belanger swinging to strike out the side and end the inning.
 
Mayer also escaped an attempted two-out rally in the eighth to preserve the one-run lead and end his first appearance with four strikeouts in two innings of work.

"Our pitching staff kept us in games the entire weekend," said UVU head coach Eric Madsen. "Pat did great job of pitching out of some jams early. Offensively, we were able to take advantage of some opportunities they gave us to score and it was certainly nice to see us knock in some runs late."

The Wolverines (1-6) got some insurance in the ninth, scoring four times for their biggest run-scoring output of the season to date. Mark Krueger had a two-run single and Tate Harding delivered a two-out RBI single as part of the inning. Utah Valley finished with seven hits, two coming from Harding with both he and Krueger driving in a pair of runs.

Earlier in the contest, with UVU down 1-0 in the fourth, Harding singled home Seth Rhineer to tie it at 1-1 before a bases loaded walk to Spencer Gothberg made it a 2-1 game.

The Wolverines scored two more in the sixth, taking advantage of two Long Beach State errors. Harding reached on the first miscue of to lead off the inning and later was at third with two outs when Kade Andrus drove him in on an infield single. Gothberg came in to score the fourth run when a botched pickoff attempt of Andrus at first got away for the inning's second error.

Next weekend Utah Valley travels to Albuquerque for the Lobo Invite, where the Wolverines will face San Francisco and host New Mexico two times each. The invite opens on Friday at 1 p.m. with UVU and USF. The Wolverines will play a doubleheader – once against each team – on Saturday before closing out the weekend against the Lobos on Sunday at 1:30 p.m.