The University of Utah Baseball traveled back to California this past weekend to take on Loyola Marymount University. Unfortunately, the Utes left Los Angeles with three losses and a 1-5 season record.

Friday’s matchup began with Utah going three up three down at the plate and taking the field with Justin Kelly starting on the mound. Utah got two quick outs on a ground ball to second and Kelly striking out the second batter. Kelly walked the third and allowed Diego Baqueiro to homer over the right-centerfield ,wall adding an RBI. Alec Cargin stepped up next to add another homer before Kelly struck out the sixth batter to get out of a rough first inning. With Kelly on the mound, Loyola added two more runs in both the fourth and fifth to put the score at 0-7.

In the top of the sixth Utah got their bats out starting with Jaylon McLaughlin who doubled to left field and stole third on a wild pitch. Jayden Kiernan was hit by a pitch followed by Trey Clarkson walking to load the bases. Loyola changed pitchers but Utah was just beginning their offensive. 

A single from Kai Roberts and a fielding error scored two runs with a hit from Tyler Thompson and a walk adding two more. Back at the top of the order for the inning, McLaughlin singled to left-center to score Thompson before Kiernan flew out to end the inning. Utah went scoreless for the rest of the game and took their first loss of the weekend.

In the second game Utah again found themselves down 1-8 before a big seventh inning. Kai Roberts and Shea Kramer started off with a couple of hits, scoring Roberts on an error. Kayler Yates and Matt Richardson each had hits to add two more runs. McLaughlin brought his bat from the first game and tripled to right field scoring Yates and Richardson to close up the score at 6-8. Utah added one more in the ninth but even with 11 hits on the night Utah came up short, losing 7-9.

The third and final game of the series was less eventful than the first two. Trey Clarkson started and went three innings without allowing a run. After holding them Utah allowed Loyola to go up with two runs in both the fifth and seventh innings. Utah failed to answer until the ninth where they added one run to put the score at 1-4 but the game ended soon after.

Utah’s pitching and fielding saw improvement from their first series at Cal State, but even with valiant efforts at the plate it wasn’t enough to save them from the run deficits they suffered early in the first two games. Utah returned home with a deepened losing record and much to work on before their first conference matchup on the road against Arizona State this weekend.

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