Underdog Utes defied longest of odds

The last thing anyone expected last week from the Utah baseball team, a program with just six winning records in the past 40 years, including another losing record this season, was a Mountain West Conference tournament championship.

Not against San Diego State, featuring the best player in college baseball. Not against New Mexico, the team with the most wins in the league. Not against rival BYU, which had already beaten the Utes five of six times this year. And certainly not against TCU, the No. 10-ranked team in the country, playing on its home field.

The Utes had come into the tournament as the No. 6 seed in a six-team tournament. You can't get any lower than that. They were underdogs in every game they played. They were the visiting team in every game, wearing their gray uniforms and sitting in the first-base dugout every time.

But somehow the Utes did it and are now headed to the NCAA baseball tournament for the first time in 49 years.

"We're tired and worn out, but it sure made it easier to get up this morning,' said sixth-year coach Bill Kinneberg, who was trying to spend time with his young family despite an onslaught of congratulatory phone calls. "We're still on a high, no doubt about that."

So how did it happen? How did a team that a month earlier was in danger of not making the tourney, come in and blow past everyone else?

"I always felt this was the best team I've ever had here," said Kinneberg. "We had great focus and were locked in for six games. We were flat-out determined."

First of all, Utah wasn't as bad as its 21-28 record appeared. Eleven losses had come by one run and four more by two. The Utes had played several tough non-conference teams and beaten the likes of No. 1-ranked UC Irvine as well as No. 22 Texas A&M.

In the MWC tourney, the Utes began by knocking off BYU in a 10-inning game, then came back to shock TCU on the second day. They had their only bad inning of the tournament on Thursday when they blew an 8-1 lead against San Diego State and lost 9-8. However, on Friday, they beat TCU again and after a brief rest came back to beat SDSU.

By the time Saturday afternoon's final game rolled around, the Ute staff was pitching on fumes and Kinneberg had to cobble something together against the Aztecs. So he used four pitchers, starting Bennett Askew who hadn't started all year and had an abysmal 9.13 ERA and finished with Brian Budrow, who had already started and relieved earlier in the week.

"Not many guys in college do this," said Kinneberg of Utah's rubber-armed staff. "But our backs were against the wall and they came to me and said, 'We're pitching, I don't care what you say. We're going to win this thing and I'm going to be a part of it' and that's what Budrow and (Jordan) Whatcott did."