Utah Valley impressive in pair of baseball wins

OREM — The impressive thing about the Utah Valley State baseball team's performance over the weekend at Sacramento State wasn't that the Wolverines won two games but rather how those two games were won.

Taking two of four from an 11-15 team like the Hornets is nothing in and of itself to write home about. But in the two victories, UVSC's starting pitchers performed superbly. In 17 2/3 innings of work over the weekend, starters Kam Mickolio and Kyle Tash combined to strike out 14 batters while yielding only three earned runs.

Mickolio set the bar high Friday with an 8-0, complete-game effort, his first shutout as a Wolverine.

"Kam was just dominant through the whole game," said Utah Valley coach Steve Gardner. "He just worked ahead the whole time. This is definitely the best outing he's had."

The next night, Tash went into the eighth inning with a 6-1 lead. Before Tash ran out of gas and had to leave what ended up as a 6-5 UVSC win with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, he had rung up 10 strikeouts. The victory improved his record to 4-2.

The Wolverines lost the Saturday afternoon game and Sunday's series finale by identical 7-1 scores.

Splitting the four game series brings Utah Valley's record to 6-13.

The week that was

SOFTBALL: On a West Coast road trip, UVSC split a pair with San Diego on Friday before getting swept Sunday by Long Beach State.

Against San Diego, the Wolverines lost 2-0 and won 3-1; the 49ers beat Utah Valley by scores of 5-3 and 1-0. A Tuesday doubleheader against visiting Nevada was canceled because of weather. UVSC is 6-17 on the year.

TRACK AND FIELD: Like the baseball and softball teams, the UVSC track and field squad spent the weekend on the left coast. The Wolverines opened the outdoor track season at the 17th annual Long Beach Classic. Joe Bendoski (Provo High) broke the school record in the 5,000 meters with a time of 14:45. He finished second, with teammate Michael Vick crossing the line eight seconds later for third place. Chris Fogt won the 100- and 200-meter sprints with times of 10.79 and 21.88 seconds, respectively. For the women, Bekah Poppinga set a new personal best in the 5,000 and Tawny Judkins (Provo High) ran well in both the 100 and 200.

Hoopsters recognized

Seven UVSC basketball players garnered recognition last week when the Division I All-Independent teams were announced.