ST. GEORGE, Utah — BYU baseball rolled up 18 hits Tuesday evening to defeat Utah Tech 18-5 at Bruce Hurst Field in St. George, Utah.
The Cougars, who improved to 10-9 on the year, got multi-hit performances from seven starters, including Luke Anderson, Ezra McNaughton and Crew McChesney who each collected three hits on the night.
Highlights
Anderson: 3-6, 5RBI, 3R, HR
McNaughton: 3-6, 3RBI, 2R
McChesney: 3-6, RBI, R, 2DBL
Ryder Robinson: 2-4, RBI, 2R, HR
Tu’Alau Wolfgramm: 2-3, 4R, 3RBI
Parker Goff: 2-4, 3R, 2B
Keoni Painter: 2-5, 2R, RBI
Utah Tech led off the scoring in the bottom of the first inning with a leadoff walk and a one-out home run to deep centerfield by Ryan Kroepel for a 2-0 lead. The Trailblazers tacked on another run in the second inning off two walks and two hits for a 3-0 advantage.
BYU got on the scoreboard in a big way in the top of the third with seven runs on four walks and four hits to take a 7-3 lead. Back-to-back walks by Goff and Wolfgramm got things rolling for the Cougars. A single by Anderson scored Goff and another single by McNaughton scored Wolfgramm and advanced Anderson to third, where he later scored on a wild pitch.
Robinson then walked and McChesney doubled to left center to score McNaughton. Robinson later scored on a wild pitch, while a sacrifice fly from Easton Jones to centerfield scored McChesney. Painter then finished off the scoring with a single to left center that scored Matt Hansen.
After two scoreless innings, BYU struck for five more runs in the sixth inning to push the lead to 12-3. Utah Tech answered with two runs in the bottom half of the inning to make the score 12-5 through six complete. The Cougars’ big hits in the sixth came from Wolfgramm, who singled to drive in two runs, Anderson who homered for two more RBI and Robinson who homered over the centerfield wall.
The Cougars tacked on another run in the seventh on a McNaughton double that scored Wolfgramm for a 13-5 lead.
After a scoreless eighth inning, BYU broke the game wide open in the top half of the ninth with five runs on five hits for final score of 18-5.
BYU freshman reliever Ethan Zufall pitched 3.2 innings of scoreless, three-hit baseball for his first win as a Cougar. In two games versus Utah Tech the Cougars have scored 37 runs on 40 hits.
UP NEXT
The Cougars will travel to Morgantown to take on the Mountaineers of West Virginia in a three-game Big 12 series scheduled for March 19-21 at Kendrick Family Ballpark. WVU is 13-4 on the year and tied with BYU at 2-1 in conference play.
Thursday and Friday’s games are set for 6:30 p.m. ET (4:30 p.m. MT), while the Saturday game is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. ET (10:30 a.m. MT). All three games will be broadcast live on ESPN+. The games will also be broadcast on BYUradio.org and the BYU Radio app.