With three innings to go, it didn’t look possible. But as U head coach Bill Kinneberg remarked after the game, “College baseball is funny.”
If that’s true, then the joke was on the UNLV Rebels on Sunday afternoon, as the Utes scored 10 unanswered runs to erase a 9-0 deficit and win in dramatic fashion in the final inning to salvage the weekend set.
The Utes did most of their damage in a sixth-run seventh inning, which cut the deficit to one. But the most pivotal at-bat of the day came courtesy of Ute catcher Jesse Shriner. After a John Welsh double tied the game at nine with one out in the bottom of the ninth, Shriner stepped up to the plate and ripped a line drive to left field, driving Welsh home as the Utes (10-17, 3-3 MWC) escaped with a 10-9 victory.
“It was a great feeling. I just went up there looking for a good pitch to hit and try to hit it hard,” Shriner said. “I was thankful my teammates did a great job getting on base and giving me an opportunity to hit them in.”
It was the capper for a huge day for Shriner, who went 4-for-5 and drove in three runs to lead his club back from behind.
However, even after Utah pulled to within one, the Rebels seemed to have put the clamps on the Ute offense, slowing the momentum to a whisper even into the ninth inning. All-conference first baseman Jay Brossman, who extended his hitting streak to 15 games Sunday, led off the ninth by popping out softly to shallow right, giving the Utes just two outs to make up a single run.
Dustin Hennis was the catalyst for the late rally, doubling to the right-field corner and advancing to third on an error. Just moments later, Welsh drove one to the gap in left center, scoring Hennis to knot the game at nine apiece.
“The guy that I faced on the last at-bat had gotten me twice before in the first two games in late innings. He throws that little frisbee slider, so I tried to take that away and step up in the box,” Welsh said. “I was just looking for a fastball in that I could pull.”
The base hit looked like a single, but Welsh was thinking two the whole way, stretching it into a double as he slid safely into second, just beating the tag.
“At (Franklin) Covey right now, the grass is a little bit longer, so anything in the gaps is just gonna die, especially if the outfielders are playing deep,” Welsh said. “I was pretty much going all the way. There was one out and you want to try to get in scoring position. I made up my mind out of the box that I was going to take second.”
While Welsh acknowledged that he had been struggling at the plate in recent weeks, coach Kinneberg said the clutch ability on display Sunday was something he’s come to expect from his veteran right fielder nonetheless.
“Johnny’s a veteran; he knows how to play the game. He plays it 100 percent every day,” Kinneberg said. “He got a good pitch and he hammered it?Getting to second base was big.”
The Rebels jumped out on top with three runs in the top of the first and added four more in the fourth, eventually taking a nine-run lead. But Shriner kicked off the Utes’ first rally, scoring on a wild pitch during a seventh inning in which the team found several different ways to get runners across the plate. Hennis had a bases-loaded walk, Welsh singled in two runs and Shriner singled in two more. All in all, the Utes had four singles and four walks in the inning, and took advantage of an error and a wild pitch. The end result was six runs across the plate, and a crucial stepping-stone for the Utes’ ninth-inning heroics.
The Utes came into Sunday afternoon’s ballgame fresh off two dishearteningly close losses from the previous two days. In the weekend opener with UNLV, the Utes’ futility from Friday continued, despite taking a quick 5-0 lead and chasing Rebel starter Ryan Tabor after just one-third of an inning.
Calvin Beamon hit his first homer of the season in the fourth en route to a three-run inning for the Rebels and a 4-for-6 performance for the leadoff right fielder. The Rebels sent the game into extra innings and Ryan Kowalski’s two-run single in the 11th sealed the victory for UNLV.
Saturday’s loss may have been even harder to take for Utah, as yet another solid performance from southpaw Eric King was wasted. Once again, Beamon was the Utes’ nemesis, driving in three runs and leading the team to a 5-4 win.
But the Utes salvaged the weekend set with their Sunday-afternoon drama, evening up their conference record in what was their first home series of the 2007 season.
“You look back at these games, we could have won three, we could have lost three,” Kinneberg said. “They had control of the game, but we fought back in the seventh and got the momentum back. That’s college baseball. It’s a great, great win for us.”