BELLEVUE, Wash. – Utah Valley got a seventh-inning home run from senior Kade Poulsen and an RBI from Drew Sims later in the frame, but Seattle U held on to take Thursday's series opener by a score of 7-2 at Bannerwood Park in Bellevue.
 
UVU falls to 9-43 overall and 7-26 in WAC play with the setback while the Seattle improves to 14-30 overall and 8-21 in league play with the win. The winner of the series is guaranteed a trip to next week's WAC Tournament. The two teams will continue the crucial series on Friday with a doubleheader beginning at 1 p.m. MT/noon PT.
 
"We needed to make a couple of plays there in the first," interim head UVU coach David Carter said. "Jesse pitched well and gave us a great opportunity, but we just couldn't do anything offensively until Kade hit that homer for us in the seventh. We need to do a better job against their starting pitchers moving forward and come out ready to go tomorrow (on Friday)."
 
The Redhawks struck first with a trio of first-inning runs to jump out to a 3-0 advantage. The UVU defense committed a pair of defensive miscues in the frame, as all three runs in the first came in unearned. Julian Kodama and Shane Jamison each picked up RBIs in the frame and Kyle Sherick came in to score on a throwing error to give SU the early lead.
 
UVU senior starter Jesse Schmit did a nice job from there, as he settled down and managed to pitch out of a couple of jams to keep it a 3-0 game into the fifth. 
 
SU then got a one-out triple from Gavin Rork in the bottom of the fifth and he later came in to score on a sacrifice fly from Sherick to extend Seattle's lead to 4-0. The Redhawks tacked on a run in the sixth on a pair of doubles to make it 5-0. 
 
The Wolverines got a runner aboard in the second, third and sixth innings, but he was stranded each time as the SU starter Morgan White held a one-hitter into the seventh. Kade Poulsen then broke up the shutout in the top of the seventh with a leadoff home run down the leftfield line to get the Wolverines on the scoreboard and make it 5-1. Alexander Marco and Brandon Luna followed by drawing back-to-back walks to put runners on first and second with nobody out and chase White from the game. Both runners later moved into scoring position on a sacrifice bunt from Mick Madsen, and Drew Sims drove Marco home on an RBI groundout to make it a 5-2 contest. 
 
The Redhawks struck back with two runs of their own in the last of the seventh, however, to regain a five-run lead at 7-2. With two on and one out, Grant Heiser and Chase Wells delivered back-to-back RBI singles to give Seattle a little insurance. 
 
UVU got a leadoff single from pinch hitter Andrew Hacker in the eighth, but the Wolverines later hit into the double play to end the threat in the inning. Sims later reached for Utah Valley on a two-out single in the ninth, but SU reliever Desmond Parisotto responded by getting Garrett Broussard to flyout to center the end the ballgame. 
 
Seattle's White allowed just two runs on two hits while striking out 10 in 6-plus innings of work to improve to 2-4 on the year. Parisotto then came on to earn a three-inning save by surrendering just two hits and no runs over the final three innings. Despite allowing just two earned runs over 5.2 innings of work, the UVU senior Schmit was tagged with the loss to drop to 1-9. 
 
Poulsen led UVU offensively on the day by going 1-for-4 with the home run. Tavyn Lords, Hacker and Sims also recorded his for the Wolverines. Shane Jamison paced Seattle by going a perfect 3-for-3 with an RBI. 
 
The crucial final four-game WAC series of the season will continue on Friday at 1 p.m. MT/noon PT with a doubleheader at Bannerwood Park. The two teams will then close the series on Saturday at 1 p.m. MT/noon PT. All three games will be streamed live on the WAC Digital Network.