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The University of Utah Athletics
Four Games Signal the Home Stretch for Baseball
5/12/2008 12:00 AM | Baseball
May 12, 2008
Complete Release in PDF Format 
The University of Utah baseball team (22-24 overall, 9-12 Mountain West) enters the home stretch of the season, hosting four games this week. After a non-confernece tilt at Ute Field against Southern Utah on Tuesday (first pitch is at 3 p.m.), the Utes will wrap up regular season conference play with a three-game set against BYU at Franklin Covey Field. BYU and Utah will lock horns on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. First pitch is set for 6 p.m., 6 p.m. and 1 p.m., respectively.
Utah will put its five-game winning streak on the line with its four games this week. The Utes began the five-game stretch last week with a 22-3 win over Southern Utah, and it continued with a four-game sweep of Air Force. With the five wins, four of them in league play, Utah vaulted up the standings, moving from sixth up to fourth place in the Mountain West Conference.
The Utah-BYU baseball series will decide which school will win the inaugural and highly-coveted Deseret Duel trophy. This week will be the last three meetings in the series as BYU owns the slim 31-28.5 lead. Each baseball game is worth 1.5 points, and Utah needs to win all three games to ensure that the trophy resides in Utah's display case. l three games to ensure that the trophy resides in Utah's display case.
Quoting Head Coach Bill Kinneberg:
On Southern Utah and BYU This Week: We won five games so last week was a good week for us. We are looking to keep that momentum going against Southern Utah on Tuesday, so that we can be ready to play BYU at the end of the week.
On the SUU and Air Force Games Last Weekend: After getting swept at TCU, I was proud of how the team came back. We have successfully put ourselves in position to get a higher seed in the Mountain West Conference Tournament, and we want to be the highest seed possible in the post season.
On Jesse Shriner: Jesse Shriner is seeing the ball a lot better than he did a couple of weeks ago. He is making good, hard contact with the pitches which tells me that he is seeing the offerings much better now.
Scouting Southern Utah
Tuesday will be the sixth and final meeting this season between these two in-state rivals. Utah has won all five previous meetings. The last time these two opponents locked horns was back on May 6. Utah pummeled the Thunderbirds, 22-3, here in Salt Lake City. SUU enters action this week with a 26-24 overall mark. It is second in the newly-renamed Summit League with a 13-10 conference tally. The team is hitting .300 this season with five batters hitting better than .310. The team is led by Keli'i Zablan and his .387 average. Nick Freitas, a .296 hitter, leads the team with 11 homers, while Joe Wright leads the T-Brids with 44 RBI. SUU's earned-run average sits at 6.17. Mac Nelson has the best ERA on the staff, checking in at 3.19 in 42.1 innings pitched. Jacob Noyes is second with a 4.56 ERA in 49.1 innings of work. Dustin Wittwer is the staff work horse. He's got a 5.15 ERA in 80.1 innings pitched. David Eldredge is in his fourth season at the helm of SUU.
Scouting BYU
The three-game Utah-BYU series will decide which school wins the overall Deseret First Duel trophy. Utah needs to win all three games to claim the hardware. This weekend will complete the four regular season meetings scheduled this year. The two tangled in Provo, Utah, back on April 8 with Utah netting the 9-7 win. BYU enters the week with a 20-33 overall mark and an 8-13 MWC tally. It is currently in a two-way tie for fifth place, but it is only one game behind Utah in the standings. The Cougars are hitting .304 on the season with five .300-plus batters on the roster. BYU is led by the bat of Sean McNaughton. He's hitting a team-best .363 this season, and he also paces the team with 14 homers, 20 doubles and 50 RBI. The team's earned-run average checks in at 7.51, and Jordan Muir is the team's top hurler. He owns a 6.26 ERA. However, Jake Wortham is the team's most prolific thrower. In a team-best 76.0 innings pitched, Wortham has a 6.75 ERA. Vance Law is the head coach, and he is in his ninth season in the dugout.
Last Week - The Utes won all five games last week. They topped Southern Utah, 22-3, and they beat Air Force, 5-2, 6-3, 17-3 and 12-4.
SUU scored two runs in the top of the first, but Utah scored the next 14 runs as the Utes raced past the Thunderbirds for a non-conference win last Tuesday, 22-3. After a two-run top of the first for Southern Utah, the Utes countered in the bottom of the frame with 10 runs. Corey Shimada accounted for three of the runs, hitting a leadoff solo homer and a two-run double in the inning. A four-run second was buoyed by Austin Jones' two-RBI single, and an eight-run seventh came from four different two-RBI hits. Shriner and Michael Beltran led the team with four hits each, and Shriner had three RBI and three runs scored. Starting pitcher Andrew Wilding picked up his third win of the season.
The Utes benefited from back-to-back RBI doubles in posting a three-run sixth in the game-one win over Air Force. Beltran hit a two-out RBI double to make it 1-0, and that was followed by Fred Ferguson's two-RBI double. Utah led 3-0 after the sixth. AFA rallied with two in the bottom of the sixth, but Jones hit a two-run homer in the eighth to give Utah the three-run win. Stephen Fife, who fanned 12 Falcon batters, tallied the win on the mound.
Utah won both ends of a doubleheader in tallying the 6-3 and 17-3 wins last Saturday. In the first game of the twinbill, Air Force led 3-2 after five. But, Utah scored four in the bottom of the sixth to complete the rally. A one-out bases-loaded single off the bat of Jesse Shriner scored two runs, giving Utah the 4-2 lead. Then, Jones hit a two-RBI double to the gap in right-center field, lifting Utah to the 6-3 win. Brian Budrow got the win as the first game of the doubleheader was a seven-inning make-up game from the March 30 rain out in Salt Lake City.
Utah, which raced out to the 3-1 lead after the first inning of the nightcap, started to ran away with the game in the third inning. Cody Guymon hit a one-out single up the middle, and he scored the game-winning run on Shriner's RBI single to shallow center field. The Falcons scored two more runs in the bottom of the fifth, but Utah exploded for four in the sixth and eight in the ninth as it bagged the 14-run win.
A three-run fourth inning built on Utah's 3-2 lead and allowed it to cruise to the 12-4 win in the final game of the series on Sunday. It was Nick Kuroczko's RBI triple in the fourth that gave Utah what it needed to secure the win. He plated Ferguson and Beltran off of his hit. AFA responded with a run in the fourth as Utah led 6-3 after four complete innings. A six-spot in the seventh inning pushed Utah's lead out to 12-3. Four of the six Ute runs came off of the long ball. Shriner hit a one-out solo homer, his second of the day, and Cooper Blanc hit a one-out three-run shot to make it 10-3. Two RBI doubles made it 12-3 as Stephen Streich got the win in relief of starter John James.
Team Notes -
Jesse and the Gang - Jesse Shriner, the reigning MWC Player of the Week, had an incredible week last week. He went into the five-game slate last week hitting .325. But in helping his team rattle off five straight wins, he's now batting 25 points better, .350. The senior catcher hit .522 (12-for-23) last week and he plated a team-best 10 RBI. He also had an eye-popping 1.043 slugging percentage as five of his 12 hits went for extra bases. Shriner belted out a double, a triple and three homers last week. The three home runs nearly doubled his season output, hitting his fifth, sixth and seventh on the year. His .522 batting average was second on the team last week as was his .577 on-base percentage.
"K-Mart" Special - For the third time this season, a Utah pitcher tied the school's single-game record for strikeouts. Stephen Fife tied the school mark with a dozen K's in his win over Air Force last Friday. The hard-throwing right-hander tossed eight innings of ball, allowing eight hits, two earned runs and a walk. And, he fanned 12 Falcon batters. It is the second time that Fife has whiffed 12 opponents this season. He also did it against UNLV on April 25. Saturday starter Brian Budrow also has a 12-K performance on his record this season. He retired 12 against Indiana back on March 13.
Now That's Clutch - Last weekend, Cody Guymon was Utah's clutch player. He plated nine RBI in five games last weekend, and five of the RBI were on two outs. He also tallied four of his 13 hits last week with two outs, going 4-for-8 (.500) with two down in an inning. On the year, Guymon has 43 RBI, and he has a team-best 20 with two outs. While Guymon hits .360 (18-for-50) with two gone, Corey Shimada and Michael Beltran have better two-out batting averages on the team. They hit .395 (17-for-43) and .377 (23-for-61), respectively.
Be Like Mike! - Freshman Michael Beltran has been posting impressive numbers in his first season of collegiate ball. The rookie shortstop is hitting .382 (63-for-165) for the season, and that number bumps up to .400 (32-for-80) in league-only games. His overall season average leads all freshman hitters in the MWC, and it ranks third in the league. More impressive, though, is that his average has jumped up 24 points over the last three weeks. Prior to the UNLV series, Beltran was hitting .358. Since the UNLV series, he's hit .467, upping his season batting average to .382. That's not too bad considering he was a meager 1-for-11 (.091) in his first-ever weekend of collegiate ball.
Big Hitters - The Utes are one of the best-hitting teams in the conference. They're first in batting average (.326), slugging (.482) and on-base (.397) percentages. Those numbers get a boost from their seven .300-plus hitters this season. As a result, Utah is the only school in the Mountain West Conference with five players ranked among the league's top 15. Utah's top hitters are: Cody Guymon (.386), first on the team, second in the league; Michael Beltran (.382), second on the team, third in the MWC; Jesse Shriner (.350), third on the team, eighth in MWC; Austin Jones (.339), fourth on the team, 12th in MWC and Corey Shimada (.337) fifth on the team, 14th in MWC. Utah's other .300 hitters are Cooper Blanc and Dustin Hennis. They both hit .331 on the year.
The Third Degree - Nick Kuroczko has started the last seven games at third for Utah, and he's made the most of it. During that span, Kuroczko is hitting .462 with a double, a triple and eight RBI. The last seven games also saw him record a .615 slugging percentage and a .481 on-base percentage. For the year, Kuroczko is hitting .393, and he has a .508 slugging percentage and a .448 on-base percentage.
Triple Threat - Utah only has 15 triples this season, ranking fifth in the league. But, the team boasts one of the top hitters in that category. Corey Shimada has seven of the team's 15 triples, ranking tied for first in the league. Through May 4, Shimada ranked fourth in the nation in triples. Last year, he was third in the nation with 10 triples. For his career, Shimada has a school-record 18 triples. He broke the career record with a triple at San Diego State on April 11.
At the Helm - Head coach Bill Kinneberg is in his fourth consecutive season as Utah's mentor and his fifth overall season as the Ute head coach. He was on the Utah bench for the 1996 season and returned to The U. in 2004. He is 122-141 all-time at Utah and he owns a 367-324 career record in 12 years. Prior to Utah, Kinneberg was a head coach at both UTEP and Wyoming, and he was also a pitching coach in the White Sox minor league organization. Bill Kinneberg is assisted by Bryan Conger, Bryan Kinneberg and Nate Schlieman.
Up Next - Utah will be one of six teams in the Mountain West Conference Tournament in Fort Worth, Texas. TCU will host the five-day event from May 21-25.
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