PROVO — Jason Ward probably wishes he could have one pitch back. With the score tied at four, UVSC starting pitcher Aaron Tash was relieved by Ward with two outs and two men on base in the bottom of the seventh inning.
On Ward's first pitch of the evening, Utah's Trevor Eastman smacked a three-run homerun over the left field fence to give Utah the 7-4 win over UVSC.
"Eastman started swinging the bat well last week and it continued today,"
Utah coach Tim Esmay said. "He was huge for us tonight."
Eastman caused UVSC pitchers problems all night. The Utah catcher went three for four with two homeruns, a single and four RBIs.
The win gives the Utes much needed momentum going into the final stretch of the season. Utah has won seven straight games and following today's contest with Utah Valley they travel to Mountain West Conference leader UNLV for a three-game series beginning on Friday.
"It's better to be hot late then early," Esmay said. "Early in the season we weren't getting the big homerun late in the game."
Utah's pitchers were solid all evening. UVSC managed only six hits and Jason Price picked up his fourth win of the season. Ryan Florence started his first game of the year and allowed four hits in four innings. Price tossed three innings and allowed only one hit.
Doug Mackay tossed the eighth and Clay Westmoreland picked up the save in the ninth by striking out the side.
"Our pitching was good again," Esmay said. "We have faith in Clay when he is out there. He's done it more then he hasn't. After Trevor hit the homerun everyone was excited to get Clay in there to do it."
Utah opened the scoring by scoring three runs with two outs in the third inning. Tash gave up a walk to Jay Brossman and Matt Ciaramella followed with a two-run homerun over the right field fence to give Utah a 2-0 lead.
Eric Chevalier scored Utah's third run on a Jared Pena hit and a UVSC fielding error.
Jed Jensen opened UVSC's scoring with a leadoff double. He later scoring on a Jeff Broadhead hit.
UVSC took a 4-3 lead in the fourth thanks to a Canyon Vance two-run homerun over the left field fence. Vance's homerun tie the game at three. Later in the inning, Josh Hinckley gave UVSC its 4-3 lead on a RBI single by Jed Jensen.
Vance nearly upped UVSC's lead to 5-3 in the fifth inning on a two-out triple. Vance attempted to steal home with Dan Bulow at the plate. As Vance slid home, Bulow struck out looking to end the inning.
The two teams conclude its six game series today at 2 p.m. at Ute Field.