OREM, Utah -- Utah Valley University baseball opens its home schedule with a four-game series against Saint Mary's College, beginning Friday at 5 p.m. MT at Brent Brown Ballpark in Orem. The teams will play a doubleheader on Saturday starting at noon before the series finale on Sunday at noon.
Utah Valley is 5-5 in home openers since opening at Brent Brown Ballpark in 2005 and is 16-15 in home-opening series during that same span. The Wolverines (2-8) and Gaels (7-5) have met 10 times prior to this weekend with Saint Mary's, of the West Coast Conference, holding a 6-4 advantage. This weekend marks the first meeting between the programs in Orem. SMC is the third of four WCC opponents for Utah Valley this season with the Wolverines having already faced Gonzaga and San Francisco and with three games on the schedule against BYU.
Utah Valley competed at the snow-shortened Lobo Invite last weekend at the University of New Mexico. The Wolverines split two games against San Francsico and dropped the only game against the host Lobos. UVU opened with an eight-inning performance from
Danny Beddes in a 3-1 win over USF on Friday, Feb. 27. Cold and snow then took over, forcing the postponement of Friday night's scheduled contest between USF and UNM and two games for UVU on Saturday. Utah Valley faced San Francisco in the first of two on Sunday, falling 7-6 after a ninth-inning rally fell just short. Then, in the weekend finale, New Mexico scored nine unanswered runs to erase an early 3-0 Wolverine lead and win 9-3.
The Gaels (7-5) won three out of four to open the season at Seattle University and split two four-game home series against Eastern Michigan and Cal State Northridge. This weekend's series is Saint Mary's final non-conference weekend series before starting league play next week against Pacific. The Gaels sport a 2.97 ERA so far as a staff with this weekend's four scheduled starters consisting of a freshman and three sophomores. Friday's schedule starter for Saint Mary's, Corbin Burnes, already has two complete games to his credit in three starts. Offensively, Zach Kirtley is batting .389 with four doubles to lead the way.
Following this weekend's series, UVU will host in-state rival BYU on Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Brent Brown Ballpark. Next weekend's series is at Creighton in Omaha at TD Ameritrade, home of the College World Series.
