SEATTLE — Utah Valley knocked off top seed New Mexico State in the opener of the 2021 WAC Softball Tournament, 6-5, on Thursday at Logan Field. The Wolverines will play either No. 2 seed Seattle U on Friday at 4 p.m. PT/5 p.m. MT with a spot in the championship game on the line. 
 
UVU (24-26) had a five-run fifth and then held on in the final inning, with Brooke Carter striking out Chloe Rivas with the bases loaded in the seventh to clinch the win and earn a save. Peyton Prigge and Madison Carr had two hits each out of the bottom two spots in the batting order and accounted for four of the team's eight hits. Katie Zuniga pitched 4.1 innings in relief and struck out four to pick up the win.
 
"New Mexico State has an unbelievable offense. They score a ton of runs and we knew they were going to battle but our pitching and defense were gritty and we got it done," said UVU head coach Stacy May-Johnson. "Peyton and Madison were amazing and really did a great job setting the table for the middle of the lineup. And Katie was unbelievable. She pounds the strike zone and makes you work for it."
 
The Wolverines had the first two batters reach in the top of the third, when Prigge blooped a single just out of the reach of the Kayla Bowen at first, and Carr singled to third. After they both moved up on a sacrifice from Emery Nielson, Jade Miller walked after a long at-bat to load the bases. Prigge stole the game's first run when she raced home on a short pop fly into shallow right off the bat of Linnah Rebolledo. Prigge was awarded home on obstruction, giving Rebolledo her 42nd RBI of the season.
 
The Aggies scored twice in the bottom of the inning to take a 2-1 lead. Matalasi Faapito had an RBI base hit during a string of three straight singles to begin the inning. Ramsay Lopez doubled home another run to give NM State the lead, 2-1.
 
In the fifth, Prigge started the five-run rally when she hit a ground-rule double on the first pitch of the inning. Carr legged out an infield single and Nielson followed with a bunt single to load the bases. Rebolledo came to the plate with the bases full and one down and singled to short, scoring Prigge and tying the game at 2-2.
 
Rien Milliken followed with a base hit to center that ended up clearing the bases. Both Carr and Nielson scored on the single, and Rebolledo raced home when the Aggies tried to get Milliken moving up to second. Query drove in pinch-runner Jaeden Barajas with a ground-rule double into the corner in left and Utah Valley led 6-2. The double was the 44th of Query's career, two shy of the school career record, held by Megan Yocum.  
 
Maya Martinez cut the lead in half in the bottom of the sixth when she lined a two-run home run over the wall in left to make it 6-4. Zuniga retired the next three hitters to keep the two-run lead intact entering the final inning.

In the bottom of the seventh, New Mexico State had two on and two out for Gabby Aragon, who singled home a run to make it a one-run game. Carter then entered for Zuniga and, after she hit Martinez to load the bases, got Rivas swinging to end it.

Utah Valley is now 9-10 all-time in the WAC Tournament and is 4-3 in tournament openers.