Baseball: UVU falls in midweek matchup to San Francisco

Photo by David Roura

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.- The UVU baseball team fell 4-1 in a midweek matchup to the University of San Francisco Tuesday before the home opener. The Wolverines were shut down offensively as five USF pitchers were used in the victory.

The Wolverines opened the scoring in the third inning on a fielder’s choice by Trevor Howell bringing in Nick Simmons from third. It was from then on the Wolverines could not make contact with the ball. USF pitching struck out six UVU batters tonight. The Wolverines were still able to get five hits with Trevor Peterson and Justin Erlandson leading the team with two hits each.

Freshman Paxton Schultz made his first career start on the mound for the Wolverines. The freshman started off strong, going five innings and striking out six batters. He gave up only two earned runs on seven hits and those runs came in the fifth and sixth innings.

Schultz was able to throw four innings of scoreless baseball. USF was able to figure him out, however, scoring one run in the fifth and adding another run in the sixth to take the lead.

Schultz was able to finished out the inning, but he was then replaced by Travis Parker who saved the inning by keeping the lead to one. Then the Dons added some insurance runs to go up 4-1. They were able to take advantage of two walks. The Wolverines were able to keep the score the same with the relief pitching of Eric Olguin. They weren’t able to recover on the offensive end, though, and the game finished with a final score of 4-1.

The Wolverines will begin their first home stand with a four game series against Indiana State. The first pitch will be Friday at 5 p.m. MST. The Wolverines are now 1-6 with hopes to win their first series of the season before conference play begins.