Utah's offense awakens in win over New Mexico

Despite a losing overall record, Utah baseball coach Bill Kinneberg has been pleased with his team's play for the most part this year.

The Utes' pitching has been solid, the defense has been good, but the hitting has taken awhile to get warmed up.

The Ute bats were hot on a cool evening at Franklin Covey Field on Thursday. Utah pounded out 11 hits in a 13-4 victory over New Mexico.

John Welsh, a senior outfielder from Spanish Fork, led the way by going 3-for-3 and knocking in six runs, while Jay Brossman also finished 3-for-3 and scored four runs, while driving in two.

With the victory, Utah improved to 6-4 in in Mountain West Conference play and 17-20 overall, while the Lobos fell to 6-7 and 17-22. For the Utes, it was their eighth win in their last 11 games.

The two teams meet tonight at 6 p.m. and again Saturday at 11:30 a.m. at Franklin Covey Field.

Besides the hitting, the Utes got a fine performance on the mound from Stephen Fife, who relieved Kerr Foster in the fourth and pitched 5 1/3 innings of shutout ball, allowing just two Lobo hits.

"Fife was outstanding," Kinneberg said. "It was tremendous to get 5 1/3 innings from him. That's a really good offense they have out there and he was able to put some zeroes up there."

After the Lobos took a 2-1 lead in the second with a pair of runs, the Utes came back with five runs in the bottom of the inning as Welsh doubled home two runs and Brossman doubled home another.

New Mexico closed the gap to 5-4, but again the Utes responded in the bottom of the fourth with three more runs as Welsh doubled in another and Dustin Hennis doubled in two runs to make it 9-4.

Welsh singled in a run in the first, doubled in two in the second, singled in another in the fourth and one more in the sixth on a sacrifice fly. His sixth RBI came in the seventh when he walked on four pitches with the bases loaded.

"The guys in front of me did a great job of getting on and I was seeing the ball well," said Welsh. "They were falling for me."

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