By defeating Southern Utah 10-5 Wednesday afternoon at Ute Field, the Utah baseball team matched its win total for all of last year with its 19th victory.
It seems to be quite an accomplishment for the Utes (19-15), who still have 19 games left in the season. However, second-year coach Bill Kinneberg wasn't about to do any celebrating.
"We've got better things to think about than that," he said. "We've still got a long ways to go."
Kinneberg acknowledges that his team is much-improved over last year when it struggled to a 19-36 record.
"No doubt we're a better ball club, a heck of a lot better," he said. "We're better one through nine in the lineup and have better pitching."
Bret Baldwin, a sophomore from West Jordan, keyed the Ute win Wednesday, going 3-for-3 and scoring four runs. Brian Lane picked up the victory, allowing one run and striking out six.
Kinneberg says it's "wonderful" to be able to play Southern Utah and Utah Valley State in midweek games to help the Utes stay fresh for their weekend series in the Mountain West Conference. The Utes are off to a 3-3 start in MWC action and play at New Mexico later this week.
In beating the T-Birds for the third time in four tries this year, the Utes got the pitching and hitting they needed.
It was 2-2 through five innings, and after the Utes took a 4-3 lead into the bottom of the seventh, they broke it open with six runs.
Mike Tummolo doubled in two runs and Baldwin and Eric King followed with doubles. Corey Shimada singled in King for the 10th run to give the Utes a cushion.
Shad McCord pitched the eighth inning and freshman Brad DeVore pitched the ninth, striking out the side.
SUU (20-14) took an early 2-1 lead on solo homers by Joe Wright and Amos Burgess off Ute starter Brandon Ast. After the Utes tied it in the fifth, Josh Bell smacked a two-run homer to make it 4-2 in the sixth, and the Utes sent 10 men to the plate in the seventh.
The game was originally scheduled for Tuesday, but snow forced the game to be postponed. And Wednesday's game was only made possible by Kinneberg's assistants Bryan Conger and Todd Delnoce, who worked all day making the field playable.
After playing in New Mexico, the Utes return home to play UNLV on April 28-30 at Franklin Covey Field.
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