OGDEN, Utah — Tatum Hall drove in five with a home run and a double, Bailey Marvin drove in three, and Britney Moreno drove in two to lead Utah Valley to a 12-1 run-rule win over Weber State in five innings.
With the win, Utah Valley secured its first full-season series sweep over Weber State since 2013 when the Wolverines took all four games over the Wildcats. Utah Valley also went 2-0 against WSU in 2020, but one more meeting was on the docket before the season was canceled.
The Wolverines secured their 20th win of the season on Tuesday in their 34th game, marking the fastest the team has reached that landmark in the WAC era (since 2014), and the third-fastest in the D-I era behind only the 2012 and 2013 teams that reached 20 wins in 29 and 31 games respectively.
"It's a good tuneup game for us to get our swings going again after the CBU series," said head coach Cody Thomson. "We've got a pretty big series this weekend against UT Arlington, and I felt like this was a tuneup game to get going again. I was really proud of our pitchers that haven't been throwing as much, Ella coming in for the start, and Hannah and Ruby coming in for relief. Especially in conference, it's really helpful to get combined wins like today."
Ella Miller, Hannah Ortega, and Ruby Anderson combined to spin a gem against the Wildcats, holding them to one run on three hits over the five innings. The lone blemish was a solo home run by Appolonia Maldonado off of Ortega in the fourth after UVU was already up 7-0. Anderson pitched her second-straight scoreless and hitless outing after silencing a stacked Nevada lineup back on March 23.
Utah Valley got back to its recipe for success for much of the season, and that was scoring first and in the first inning. The Wolverines set the tone with two runs in the first, with both coming in off a single by Bailey Marvin.
Hall blew the game open in the third with a three-run homer just inside the foul pole in right to make it 5-0.
Some aggressive baserunning — another calling card for the Wolverines for much of this season — allowed two more runs to score in the fourth. Maddie McSorley doubled off the wall in left center and Ry Binne smacked a single off the pitcher to put runners at the corners for Moreno, who roped a single up the middle. McSorley scored and Binne advanced to third, while Moreno got in a rundown between first and second, ultimately being tagged out but allowing Binne to score easily too.
Maldonado got the Wildcats their only run of the ballgame in the fourth, but the Wolverines answered back in a big way with a five-run fifth to push the game into run-rule territory.
WSU gave UVU a rally for free, walking the first two batters before plunking McSorley to load the bases. Binne then plated the first run of the rally with a sac fly to left. Moreno picked up another RBI single and Hall roped a double over the center fielder's head, then Marvin capped the rally with a single to left, making it 12-1.
Anderson toed the rubber for the final frame, picking up one strikeout in a three up, three down fifth.
Utah Valley will look to ride this momentum into a big three-game series this weekend at Wolverine Softball Field as the Wolverines host UT Arlington. The two teams will play a doubleheader on Friday beginning at 2 p.m. MT, then wrap up the series on Saturday at noon. All three games will be streamed on ESPN+ with live stats at GoUVU.com/stats.
