The U baseball team (1-6) finally has something to build on after last week’s win at UCLA.
The Utes were only able to play one game since three games were rained out, but they are back in Los Angeles this week to face 2-3 Loyola Marymount. Loyola is only a Division III team, but is coming off a win over Chapman, who is ranked No. 4 in Division III.
“They’re a solid club,” Kinneberg said. “They will be in the middle of the West Coast Conference championship race. This will be a terrific test against an established program.”
The Utes still weren’t able to put together a good weekend series of games because of the weather.
“It’s too bad we didn’t get to play again on Saturday or Sunday to see how they would respond to the win,” U baseball coach Bill Kinneberg said. “We’re just anxious to get back on the field this week.”
Even so, the Utes showed that they can play good defense, as they only had one error last week.
The U also capitalized with runners in scoring position, which is a major problem they have had since opening day.
“Hopefully this will give us some confidence that we can win games against good people and in tough situations,” Kinneberg said.
Ute pitcher Jason Price will open the series against Loyola. He is coming off a great game, where he held the Bruins to only three runs.
“Jason Price has pitched extremely well and he did very well Friday night against UCLA,” Kinneberg said. “He is really commanding all three of his pitches right now. He kept UCLA off balance and was able to really move his fastball in and out of the strike zone well…All three of our pitchers [Price, Josh cooper and Brian Lane] did well. They threw strikes and got after hitters. I’ll take four runs anytime against a good club.”
The other two starting pitchers, Chad Cullers and Matt Crockett will pitch games two and three, respectively. Cullers is 0-0 with an 8.31 ERA, while Crockett is 0-2 with a 7.36 ERA.
Jeff Stevens will be on the hill for LMU on Friday and is currently 0-0 with a 2.57 ERA, while Stephen Khan is 0-0 with a 2.70 ERA.