Mills pitches second straight complete game, UVU cruises to victory

ST. GEORGE — Tiffany Mills pitched her second straight complete game in as many days for Utah Valley on Sunday afternoon in St. George as the Wolverines cruised to an 11-3 victory over Southern Utah.

The win helped the Wolverines sweep the two-game series over SUU and improve to 2-0 on the young season while the Thunderbirds dropped to 0-2 with the loss.

"Mills' line is not indicative of how well she threw today. She had allowed just one hit and was shutting them (SUU) out before the rain delay," said UVU head coach Todd Fairbourne. "She was in total control."

Mills, who picked up a complete game victory in the circle for UVU on Saturday, followed it up with another start-to-finish outing on Sunday. The junior transfer from Louisiana-Monroe allowed just three runs on five hits while striking out seven.

UVU jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead over the T-Birds with two runs in the first and three more in the second. The scoring didn't stop there for the Wolverines, as they pushed across one more run in the third and five more runs in the fourth to pull ahead 11-0.

Deianna Russell started the scoring by driving home the first run with an RBI single, while Amanda Perez plated the second with an RBI groundout. Breanna English and Jamie North then scored in the second thanks to two SUU errors in the frame. Amanda Robinson also drove home a run in the second inning on an RBI single.

Krystin Jachim led off the third with a single and she later came around to score on an English RBI. In the fourth inning the Wolverines put the game out of reach by putting five more runs on the board. Perez, Jachim and English all drove home runs in the frame on RBI singles, while UVU scored two more runs on two SUU wild pitches. After a half-hour rain delay, the Thunderbirds managed to push across three late runs off of Mills. They scored two of them in the bottom of the fourth and one more in the fifth, but it wasn't enough as UVU picked up the eight-run rule victory after five innings.

In all the Wolverines outhit the T-Birds 13-5, and UVU didn't commit an error while SUU committed five errors.

English, Jachim, Russell and Marie Williams led the way for Utah Valley offensively as they each finished with two hits apiece. English and Russell both went 2-for-2, while Jachim and Williams each finished 2-for-4. English and Perez led the way in the RBI department, as they both added two apiece.

"Offensively everybody chipped in, but one person that really got us going was Marie Williams," added Fairbourne. "The kid is a little catalyst and her speed really made a difference."

The Wolverines will return to the diamond next weekend, Feb. 18-19, when they travel to Los Angeles, Calif., to take on Loyola Marymount in a four-game series.

Box Score

James Warnick is an assistant sports information director at Utah Valley University. For more information on Wolverine athletics, visit WolverineGreen.com.