2015 WAC Baseball Tournament
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MESA, Arizona – Utah Valley University is set to open the 2015 WAC Tournament as the No. 5 seed and will face No. 4 Sacramento State on Wednesday afternoon at 3 p.m. MST/4 p.m. MDT from Hohokam Stadium, the spring home of the Oakland A's. The entire tournament can be seen live on the WAC Digital Network via WACSports.com.

The Wolverines (18-33) are slated to start freshman left-hander Jackson Cofer, who is coming off of a performance at North Dakota that netted him his first career win. Cofer (1-5, 5.10 ERA) did not pitch at Texas-Pan American last weekend due to rain forcing a change in the schedule. The Hornets (30-25) will counter with left-hander Sam Long (6-4, 3.01 ERA). Cofer got a no-decision in UVU's 11-9 win over Sac State on April 11. He pitched 4.0 innings and surrendered six runs on six hits. Long took the loss in that game after giving up nine earned runs (10 total) on 10 hits in five-plus innings.

Sac State is the defending tournament champion and Wednesday's contest is a rematch of last season's final. The Hornets defeated UVU twice in the 2014 tournament with the first of the two wins forcing a winner-take-all contest on the final day. Sac State won both games over UVU by identical 10-3 scores.

The Wolverines went 7-8 against the rest of the WAC Tournament field: 1-2 vs Seattle, 2-1 vs CSU Bakersfield, 2-1 vs North Dakota, 2-1 vs Sacramento State and 0-3 against Northern Colorado. Every series but Sac State was played on the road.

With a win in the opening game UVU would face either SU or CSUB on Thursday (SU would play the lowest-seeded winner from Wednesday's games). A loss would have UVU playing for its tournament life against the UND/NC loser on Thursday morning at 11 a.m. MST.

The rest of the tournament field includes No. 1 Seattle University and No. 2 CSU Bakersfield. Regular season champion Grand Canyon is in its second season of reclassification and not eligible for postseason play, giving the Redhawks and Roadrunners the top two seeds and byes in the opening round. The Wolverines dropped two of three at Seattle to open the WAC season and won two of three at Bakersfield.  Both the Redhawks and 'Runners have had great pitching success with CSU Bakersfield holding a team ERA of just 2.97 during the WAC season. Seattle starter Skyler Genger leads the WAC and ranks eighth nationally with 113 strikeouts.

North Dakota enters the tournament as the No. 3 seed after sweeping New Mexico State and is the WAC's hottest team having won four straight. UND outfielder/pitcher Jeff Campbell hit for the cycle in Saturday's finale at NM State and also went 1-0 with two saves on the week to earn both the WAC Pitcher and Hitter of the Week on Monday. UVU won two of three at North Dakota in the second to last week of the regular season.

Northern Colorado rounds out the field and is the one team to sweep Utah Valley in league play this year. The Bears are led by Jensen Park, who batted an impressive .515 in league play and .436 overall, which ranks third in the country.

On Tuesday, Senior Kade Andrus was named second team All-WAC and was the lone Utah Valley player represented on either the first or second teams. Andrus led UVU in several categories including batting (.328), home runs (six), triples (five), RBIs (36) and steals (13) while also ranking second in the WAC in walks with 35. The outfielder hit .364 with four home runs during WAC play. 

Northern Colorado's Jensen Park, the 2013 Great West Player of the Year, was named the WAC Player of the Year after batting .515 with five home runs during the WAC season. CSU Bakersfield's Hayden Carter was named Pitcher of the Year, Grand Canyon outfielder Garrison Schwartz is the Freshman of the Year and CSU Bakersfield head coach Bill Kernan, in his final season, received Coach of the Year honors.