Utah 16, BYU 10Up 7-2 in the third inning, the BYU baseball team was feeling pretty good about winning its second in a row over Utah at Franklin Covey Field, a place the Cougars have had a difficult time in since it opened five years ago.
The good feeling disappeared in a hurry, however, in a disastrous fifth inning when the Utes exploded for eight runs by reeling off seven straight hits. By the time the dust settled, the Utes led by six, and they coasted to a 16-10 victory.
The Utah eruption left BYU first-year coach Vance Law shaking his head, trying to figure out what happened to his pitching, which allowed 33 runs in the three-game series.
"They swung the bats well," said Law. "But when you take a 7-2 lead, you'd hope you could hold them. It's frustrating when you feel like you have the game in control. We didn't do a very good job of throwing the ball today. The last three weekends we haven't pitched well."
Utah pounded out 18 hits on the day including eight in the fabulous fifth when they chased starter Jordan Opdahl and roughed up relievers James Ray and Sean Noorda.
"I'm proud of the way our guys responded," said Ute coach Tim Esmay. "We had to score some runs and our kids kept coming and coming and coming,"
The Utes went into the bottom of the fifth trailing 7-5, but quickly took the lead for good. After leadoff batter Adam Castleton reached first on an error, the Utes smacked seven straight hits as Sam Swenson singled, Nate Weese singled, Mike Goff singled, Jed Chrisman doubled, Brit Pannier doubled, Donald Hawes singled and Rob Stuart singled.
Finally the Cougars stopped the bleeding when they got Donnie Saba to ground out to second. By this time it was 11-7 for the Utes, who added a couple of more runs when Castleton, up for the second time in the inning, tripled in two more runs.
"Once you string a couple of hits together, everything seems to get rolling," said Weese, who went 3-for-4 with three RBI on the day. "Everybody's seeing the ball real well."
Both teams scored in the sixth and the Utes got two more on a towering blast by Weese over the right field fence, while the Cougars got two in the ninth thanks to a pair of Ute errors.
Esmay was pleased with his pitching after starter Brandon Page allowed seven runs in three innings. Jason Wylie, David Ebright, Brett Lindsey and Brandon Ballard gave up just one earned run among them over the last six innings.
"We're still chasing -- next weekend will be a big weekend for us," said Esmay, whose team faces MWC leader New Mexico on the road for three games.
The Utes stand in fourth place in the MWC at 11-13, two games behind BYU at 13-11. After the three games at Albuquerque, the Utes return home to play Air Force May 12-14 before playing in the MWC tournament.
You can reach Mike Sorensen by e-mail at sor@desnews.com