PROVO -- Jake Stubblefield's game-winning home run Saturday afternoon, only the fourth BYU dinger at Larry H. Miller Field this season, lifted the Cougars past UNLV, 8-6.
Timely hitting and clutch pitching helped BYU become the only team in the top half of the Mountain West Conference to win a series this week. The Cougars remain in second place in the MWC at 12-11 with an 19-25-1 overall record, while UNLV falls to 10-14 and 25-25.
"We have a really solid league this year," said BYU Coach Vance Law, who will help host the conference playoffs in three weeks. "I'm really impressed."
In a league where fourth place Air Force defeat top-ranked San Diego State twice and last place New Mexico took two out of three against number three Utah, BYU's series finale against fifth-place UNLV was anything but in the bag.
"Every once in a while we coast," Law said. "Today we concentrated for nine innings."
Rebel second baseman Garett Shitanishi kept his bat hot in the first inning, hitting a solo homerun to right field to give UNLV a 1-0 lead.
BYU battled back in the second, tying the game at 1-1 with three consecutive singles by Ranger Wiens, Stubblefield and Adam Wilkes with Wilkes picking up the RBI.
After giving up two runs for the second straight inning, starting pitcher Paul Jacinto was replaced with Sam Fernley in the top of the fifth inning. Fernley got off to a slow start, but stopped the bleeding. First baseman Steve Goldberg singled to left, allowing Robert Vankirk to advance to third. Both runners advanced on a wild pitch by Fernely. With Ryan Ruiz up at the plate, Fernley threw what could have been his second wild pitch of the inning, but catcher Wilkes retrieved the ball and threw Vankirk out at the plate.
Fernley followed with 2.1 innings, giving up just one run, five hits and striking out one.
Cougar center fielder Doug Jackson followed Fernely's pitching performance with a leadoff double down the left field line. Cameron Coughlan moved the runner up with a sacrifice bunt, and Dave Jensen drew a walk to put runners at the corners. Jensen stole second, setting the table for Matt Carson's RBI double to off of the left field wall.
BYU tied the game in the sixth off of an RBI triple by Jackson. Wilkes drew a lead-off walk, and Law brought in Ryan Thurgood to pinch run. Han Yi laid down a sacrifice bunt moving Thurgood to second before Jackson blasted his triple past a diving Brent Johnson in center field. Coughlan followed with a sacrifice fly to right field for the go-ahead RBI. UNLV went to their bullpen and brought Ben Scheinbaum in to take the hill against fellow Green Valley High School (Las Vegas, Nev.) graduate Dave Jensen. Jensen welcomed his fellow Gator into the game and increased his hitting streak to 16 games with a base hit to right field.
Rob Itri and Stubblefield extended the Cougar lead in the seventh. With Itri on third after his double to left center, UNLV brought pitcher Jake Gann out of the bullpen. Stubblefield greeted Gann's first pitch with a two-run homerun that bounced on the street past the scoreboard in left field, well over the 388-foot sign in left center.
After Fernley allowed two consecutive hits in the eighth inning, Law turned to senior lefty James Ray to face hot-hitting lefty Shitanishi with men on first and third. Ray got Shitanishi to fly out to center, but Joe Wickman singled past the second baseman in the next at bat, scoring the only run credited to Fernley as Steve Goldberg crossed the plate from third base. Cougar closer Tyler Dabo then got the nod, popping Johnson up to right field and striking out Eric Nielsen swinging.
Pitcher Jake Chrisman pinch ran for Jensen in the bottom of the eighth, then remained in the game at first base. The only action Chrisman saw on the field was the last out of the game. Dabo struck Amundsen out looking, then popped Schuler up to left before grounding out Schuler. Dabo pitched 1.1 innings with no hits, no runs, two strikeouts and recorded his third save of the year in front of 1,040 fans.
The Cougars' next MWC games start Thursday against the University of Utah at Franklin-Covey Field, but first they will host Southern Utah University in single games on Monday and Tuesday at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., respectively.
UNLV at Brigham Young Univ.
May 04, 2002 at Provo, Utah (Larry H.Miller Field)
UNLV 6 (25-25,10-14 MWC)
Player AB R H RBI BB SO PO A LOB
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RUIZ, Ryan ss............ 5 0 2 1 0 0 2 3 1
SHITANISHI, Garett 2b.... 5 1 2 1 0 0 3 2 0
WICKMAN, Joe lf.......... 5 0 3 1 0 0 1 0 1
JOHNSON, Brent cf........ 5 1 1 0 0 0 3 0 1
NIELSEN, Eric rf......... 3 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 2
AMUNDSEN, Derek dh....... 4 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 4
SCHULER, Tony 3b......... 5 2 3 1 0 0 0 2 0
VANKIRK, Robert c........ 5 1 2 1 0 2 4 0 1
GOLDBERG, Steve 1b....... 4 1 2 1 0 0 9 2 0
PUPO, Giovanni p......... 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0
BONNELL, Jared p........ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
SCHEINBAUM, Ben p....... 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
GANN, Jake p............ 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0
MARUFFI, Joe p.......... 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Totals................... 41 6 16 6 1 4 24 13 11
Brigham Young Univ. 8 (19-25-1,12-11 MWC)
Player AB R H RBI BB SO PO A LOB
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JACKSON, Doug cf......... 5 2 2 1 0 2 3 0 2
COUGHLAN, Cameron 2b..... 3 0 3 1 0 0 2 2 0
JENSEN, Dave 1b.......... 2 1 1 0 3 0 6 1 0
CHRISMAN, Jacob pr/1b... 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
CARSON, Matt rf.......... 5 0 1 2 0 0 3 0 3
ITRI, Rob 3b............. 4 2 3 0 0 0 0 3 0
WIENS, Ranger ss......... 3 1 2 0 1 0 1 2 0
STUBBLEFIELD, Jake dh.... 3 1 2 2 0 0 0 0 2
WILKES, Adam c........... 1 0 1 2 1 0 1 2 0
THURGOOD, Ryan pr....... 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
BIRKELAND, Lars c....... 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0
YI, Han lf............... 3 0 0 0 0 2 5 0 1
JACINTO, Paul p.......... 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0
FERNLEY, Sam p.......... 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0
RAY, James p............ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
DABO, Tyler p........... 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0
Totals................... 30 8 15 8 5 4 27 11 8
Score by Innings R H E
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UNLV................ 100 220 010 - 6 16 0
Brigham Young Univ.. 010 122 20X - 8 15 2
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E - COUGHLAN; JACINTO. LOB - Rebels 11; BYU Cougars 8. 2B - RUIZ; WICKMAN,
Jo; JACKSON; CARSON M.; ITRI. 3B - JACKSON. HR - SHITANISHI(4);
STUBBLEFIELD(3). HBP - NIELSEN. SH - AMUNDSEN; COUGHLAN; STUBBLEFIELD; YI.
SF - COUGHLAN; WILKES. SB - COUGHLAN; JENSEN. CS - COUGHLAN; JENSEN.
UNLV IP H R ER BB SO AB BF
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PUPO, Giovanni...... 4.1 8 4 4 2 3 16 21
BONNELL, Jared...... 1.1 3 2 2 2 0 4 8
SCHEINBAUM, Ben..... 1.0 2 1 1 0 0 4 4
GANN, Jake.......... 1.0 2 1 1 0 1 5 5
MARUFFI, Joe........ 0.1 0 0 0 1 0 1 2
Brigham Young Univ. IP H R ER BB SO AB BF
-----------------------------------------------
JACINTO, Paul....... 4.2 10 5 5 1 1 23 26
FERNLEY, Sam........ 2.1 5 1 1 0 1 11 11
RAY, James.......... 0.1 1 0 0 0 0 2 2
DABO, Tyler......... 1.2 0 0 0 0 2 5 5
Win - FERNLEY (1-1). Loss - BONNELL (4-4). Save - DABO (3).
WP - FERNLEY. HBP - by JACINTO (NIELSEN).
Umpires - HP: Terry Balser 1B: Jeff Jenkins 3B: Bill Boyd
Start: 12:58 Time: 3:24 Attendance: 1040
Game notes:
Game 3 of 3...Utah beats UNM 3-0 and AFA beats SDSU 7-3 today.
FERNLEY faced 2 batters in the 8th.