Utah Utes campus briefs

BASEBALL: Utah sophomore C.J. Cron hit two home runs and a team-high three hits to lead the Utes to a 15-7 win over Southern Utah on Wednesday evening.

Utah took a 9-0 lead after the first two innings. The Utes scored three runs in the top of the first with the help of a two-run home run from Nik Gumeson. Cron hit his first homer of the game, a two-run shot over the left field fence, in a five-run second inning.

Although Utah added a run in the bottom of the third, Southern Utah slowly chipped away at the lead, scoring two runs each in the third, fifth and sixth innings to cut the score to 9-6. Cron pulled the Utes back ahead with his second home run of the game in the bottom of the sixth, a three-run blast deep over the left field fence to give Utah a 12-6 lead. Rick Cornu also had a key hit in the seventh inning, a two-RBI single up the middle in a three-run inning for a 15-6 advantage. Southern Utah capped the scoring with a run in the top of the eighth.

"It was big that we scored the majority of our runs with two outs," head coach Bill Kinneberg said. "C.J.'s two homers were big. The second one got us going after they creeped back, and Cornu's hit in the seventh was also big."

Southern Utah was led by a 3-for-4 performance from Marcus Romero.

Utah, which is in first-place in the Mountain West Conference with a 5-1 record, returns to conference action this weekend with a three-game series against UNLV, beginning at 6 p.m. on Friday.

TENNIS: Sophomore Anastasia Putilina of the 39th-ranked University of Utah women's tennis team (11-6, 3-0) was named the Mountain West Conference Co-Player of the Week, Wednesday. The Belgorod, Russia, native pulled off a duo of upsets at the No. 1 singles position in MWC action this past week.

Putilina's, 7-5, 6-3, win over 37th-ranked Kristina Nedeltcheva clinched the Utes 4-3 upset of 29th-ranked UNLV. Putilina teamed up with freshman Paige Miles in doubles to defeat Nedeltcheva and Jana Albers, 9-8(2), at the No. 1 position.

In Utah's 5-2 win over SDSU, the Ute put up a 6-3, 6-2 win over 50th-ranked Julia Trunk.

The Utes head to Air Force, Colorado State and Wyoming this weekend.