Men’s baseball goes 3-1 against USU

This archived article was written by: Jarett Hunt

The USU Eastern baseball team used their bye week to play the USU club team last weekend and won the series 3-1. Head Coach Scott Madsen was pleased with how the weekend went. “It was good to keep the season rolling. We are heading into our last half of conference and right now we are tied for second place. We didn’t play our best this weekend, but in game four, we seemed to get our groove back. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the season has in store.”
The USU club team is a surprisingly competitive team. They are ranked sixth in all of club baseball; are coming off of a World Series appearance and won two national championships in the past five years.
In game one, sophomore pitching Ace Jarrod Lessar threw a shutout, striking out nine. At the plate, sophomore Chandler Barkdull got the team going with an RBI triple in the first inning that scored leadoff batter Ryan Curtis.
In the third inning, sophomore Jarrett Hunt hit a two out, two RBI double that brought in sophomores Jesse Rowley and Cole Fossat. That would be all the Eagles needed for Lessar and won the first game 4-0.
Game two saw another early lead for the Eagles when Rowley hit an RBI double that scored Barkdull. Later in the first inning sophomore Seth Butterfield drove in Rowley for the second run. In the third inning, Hunt doubled to score Rowley. Then freshman Connor Udy followed it with a double of his own to score Hunt.
The inning kept rolling when freshman Jantzen Wiscombe scored Butterfield on a sacrifice fly. Freshman Jake Smith started on the mound and threw five strong innings, giving up two unearned runs and earning himself the win on the mound. Fossat pitched the final inning to earn the 6-5 save for the Eagles.
On the second day, the Eagles came out sloppy. They commited five errors in the field and only had two hits through five innings, giving the Eagles an 8-2 deficit. Despite a late rally, the Eagles deficit was too much to overcome and they lost 8-5.
The loss in game three lit a fire in the Eagles, who came out in game four ready to play. Sophomore Lionel Colon dominated on the mound and threw a one-hit shutout with eight strikeouts.
The Eagles only needed one run for Colon, but instead gave him 15. Butterfield hit an early three-RBI-double that got the Eagles going in the third inning. The fourth inning saw a huge scoring outburst, with the team scoring 11 runs, with every batter in the lineup reaching base safely. Curtis, Hunt and Butterfield had RBI singles, Rowley and Udy had RBI doubles, and Barkdull stamped the inning off with a three-run moonshot home run.
With the wins last weekend, the Eagles surpassed their win total from last season (16) and are sitting at 17-15. They are 9-7 in the Scenic West Athletic Conference and in a three way tie for second place with College of Southern Nevada and Salt Lake Community College.
The Eagles play Colorado Northwestern in Rangely this weekend.