Baseball club fares well in first spring tourney
For the Utah State University club baseball team’s first time actually playing outside, the Aggies were successful, finishing 2-1 in a tournament in Moab.
“They [the Aggies] performed as expected,” Head Coach Ernie Rivers said. “Defense let us down with more errors than expected. Pitching turned out better than expected.”
USU’s first game was against Weber State Friday night, a game in which USU won 11-9. Greg Peterson was the winning pitcher for the game. He pitched five innings, while only allowing three earned runs.
The team lost to Colorado Northwestern College 9-8. They lost the game at the bottom of the seventh inning, Saturday morning.
Joe McFarland pitched five innings, giving up one unearned run.
The game against Colorado does not count toward the team’s record because the college is not in the Aggies’ conference, thus these games are considered exhibition games. Games like this serve as practice games, giving the team extra at-bats and extra work for pitchers, Rivers said.
Two different lineups started in each of these games. Rivers said both teams played impressively.
“Our backups could start on any other team in our conference,” Rivers said.
The team then played the Wildcats two more times. Saturday night they beat them 5-1.
Brock Yancey pitched four innings as the relief pitcher, and allowed only four hits and one run. The run was unearned.
In USU’s last game against Weber, the Wildcats prevailed 10-0.
USU batted .325 against the Wildcats over the weekend.
“You are doing pretty good to get above .300 as a team,” Rivers said. “The team goal is .350.”
The Aggies’ next games will be played Feb. 22 and 23 in Lewiston, Idaho. They will be playing the University of Idaho and Eastern Washington University.