CEDAR CITY, Utah — Amber Rodriguez had a four-hit day and Lily Riley tossed a complete game to lead Utah Valley to a 7-1 win over Southern Utah in the regular season finale on Saturday afternoon at Kathryn Berg Field.
With the win, the Wolverines have secured the No. 4 seed in next week's WAC Tournament and will face the very same Thunderbirds on Wednesday in Stephenville, Texas at 4 p.m. MDT.
Riley's win is her 15th of the season, the third-most in a single season in program history and the most in the WAC era. Riley trails only Tiffany Mills, who had 18 wins in 2012 and 17 in 2013.
For the second straight day, Utah Valley put up a five-spot on SUU's Delaney Baker to open the scoring. The Wolverines broke the scoreless deadlock in the third with some ground attack, getting four run-scoring singles from Rodriguez, Payge Armendariz, Emma Haygood, and Megan Sterzer. Armendariz's single scored two.
The Thunderbirds loaded the bases in the home half of the inning, but were only able to score one out of it. The Wolverines nearly got out of it unscathed, but were unable to turn what would've been an inning-ending double play.
Utah Valley tacked on two more via an RBI single by Britney Moreno and an RBI double by Rodriguez.
Riley capped off arguably her best performance of the conference season retiring the last 11 Thunderbirds she faced.
Utah Valley will now head to the campus of Tarleton State for the WAC Tournament, set to begin on Wednesday. The Wolverines will play their first game of the double-elimination tournament at 4 p.m. MDT, with all games airing live on ESPN+.
