Earl Wilson Stadium
East Harmon Avenue Las Vegas NV 89119
LAS VEGAS, Nev.--BYU pulled within a half game of first place in the Mountain West Conference Thursday evening with a 8-3 victory over UNLV.
The Cougars, now 15-13 overall and 6-4 in the league, stopped a two-game losing streak as Nate Fernley struck out seven for his third complete game this season to improve his record to 9-1.
"Nate gives us confidence whenever he's on the mound," said BYU Coach Vance Law. "Not only did we swing the bats well, we did so in the middle innings when we have been struggling."
The Rebels, 13-18 overall and 4-6, got on board early when David Trujillo hit a two-run homer in the first inning to bring in Trent Kitsch, who had walked.
UNLV's Garett Shitanishi got a lead-off double in the third and advanced all the way to third base before he was called out on a a unique double play as a result of Kitsch striking out and interfering with an attempted throw to second by BYU catcher Lars Birkeland.
Cougar Michael Wirrick scored off Doug Jackson's sacrifice fly in the fifth inning. Shane Belliston doubled off the top of the right field wall to drive in Birkeland to tie the score at two-all. Then teammate Matt Carson hit a two-run, one-out single with a two-strike count.
Wirrick scored off Birkeland's double to left off the wall in the sixth. UNLV's Joe Jacobitz scored on a sac-fly after he tripled in the sixth to close the gap, 5-3 in favor of BYU.
Cougar Kainoa Obrey hit a two-out solo home run to right field in the seventh as he extended his hitting streak to 10 games. BYU pinch-hitter Ty Haguewood hit a lead-off solo homer in the eighth. Jackson doubled in Tim Law, who also doubled in the eighth.
The two teams meet in game two of the series on Friday. That game will be broadcast live locally after the Utah Jazz game on KSRR (1400 AM) or on the Internet at unlvrebels.fansonly.com/sports/m basebl/unlv-m-basebl-sched.html at 8 p.m. MST.
The Automated ScoreBookBrigham Young at UNLV
Mar 29, 2001 at Las Vegas, NV (E. Wilson Stadium)
Brigham Young 8 (15-13,6-4 MWC)
Player AB R H RBI BB SO PO A LOB
------------------------------------------------------
JACKSON, Doug lf......... 4 0 2 2 0 2 2 0 1
BELLISTON, Shane cf...... 5 1 1 1 0 2 1 0 1
CARSON, Matt rf.......... 5 0 1 2 0 2 2 1 1
OBREY, Kainoa 3b......... 5 1 2 1 0 2 2 1 0
KING, Seth ss............ 4 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1
HALES, Brad ph/ss....... 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
HIESTAND, Jeff dh........ 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
HAGUEWOOD, Ty dh........ 2 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0
WIRRICK, Michael 1b...... 1 2 1 0 1 0 3 1 0
LAW, Tim 1b............. 1 1 1 0 0 0 3 1 0
BIRKELAND, Lars c........ 3 1 1 1 1 0 9 0 2
PERRY, Tyler 2b.......... 3 1 0 0 1 1 3 2 0
FERNLEY, Nate p.......... 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0
Totals................... 36 8 11 8 3 11 27 8 6
UNLV 3 (12-18,4-6 MWC)
Player AB R H RBI BB SO PO A LOB
------------------------------------------------------
SHITANISHI 2b............ 3 0 2 0 0 0 2 2 0
CRUZ cf.................. 4 0 0 0 0 1 3 0 0
KITSCH dh................ 3 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 3
TRUJILLO 1b.............. 3 1 1 2 0 2 8 0 1
JACOBITZ lf.............. 4 1 2 0 0 0 2 0 0
JOHNSON rf............... 3 0 1 1 0 1 2 0 0
RUIZ ss.................. 3 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 0
HERTEL ph............... 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
BEASLEY c................ 3 0 0 0 1 0 10 1 1
SCHULER 3b............... 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
STRONG 3b............... 4 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 1
BONNELL p................ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
VAN p................... 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
MALOFF p................ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Totals................... 31 3 6 3 2 7 27 7 6
Score by Innings R H E
-------------------------------------------
Brigham Young....... 000 041 120 - 8 11 2
UNLV................ 200 001 000 - 3 6 0
-------------------------------------------
E - KING 2. DP - Cougars 1; Rebels 1. LOB - Cougars 6; Rebels 6. 2B -
JACKSON; BELLISTON; LAW; BIRKELAND; SHITANISHI. 3B - JACOBITZ. HR - OBREY;
HAGUEWOOD; TRUJILLO. HBP - WIRRICK; TRUJILLO. SH - SHITANISHI. SF - JACKSON;
JOHNSON. SB - WIRRICK; CRUZ.
Brigham Young IP H R ER BB SO AB BF
-----------------------------------------------
FERNLEY, Nate....... 9.0 6 3 3 2 7 31 36
UNLV IP H R ER BB SO AB BF
-----------------------------------------------
BONNELL............. 4.1 5 4 4 2 2 16 20
VAN................. 3.2 6 4 4 1 8 17 18
MALOFF.............. 1.0 0 0 0 0 1 3 3
Win - FERNLEY (9-1). Loss - BONNELL (2-3). Save - None.
HB - FERNLEY; BONNELL. PB - BIRKELAND.
Umpires - Home:Joe Burleson 1st:Dan Pedersen 3rd:John DeLuca
Start: 7:09 pm Time: 2:29 Attendance: 330
As BYU readies to travel to UNLV for a three-game baseball series starting this Thursday, there's good news and bad.
The good news is that the distance from first place Utah isn't as wide as it could have been. The Cougars are one game out with a 5-4 record in the Mountain West Conference. The bad news is that BYU's second-best starting pitcher is out for a couple weeks with a broken hand.
BYU, now 14-13 overall, plays at UNLV, 12-17 and 4-5, beginning Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m. (PST) and Saturday at 2 p.m. (PST). However, the Cougars will be without the services of Ryan Adams, 5-2, 3.24, who suffered a broken bone in his throwing hand.
The probable starter for BYU's Thursday game with the Rebels will likely be Nate Fernley, 8-1, 2.59, who has been the lead-off pitcher most of the season.
"With Adams out we will have to look at our rotation," said BYU Coach Vance Law. "We need to get back to the basics this week and discipline ourselves. We can't allow teams to come in to Provo to and take two games from us like Air Force did."
The Cougars dropped two of three last weekend to AFA in the first home league games of the season. Other than Fernley winning, among the highlights last weekend was Doug Jackson going five-for-five in game two as he lifted his batting average from .311 to .378 last week. Jackson was one of eight Cougars to raise batting averages as the team's average also rose from .285 to .296.
Jackson was the lead-off batter in all three games last week and tripled in the first two games. Teammate Tyler Perry tied a school record by hitting two triples in the opening game with AFA.
BYU's games at UNLV will be broadcast by KSRR (1400 AM) locally. Friday and Saturday's games will also be broadcast over the Internet on UNLV's website at nternet at either http://unlvrebels.fansonly.com/sports/m-basebl/unlv-m-basebl-sched.html. After the UNLV series, BYU plays at Southern Utah on its return home from Las Vegas on April 2-3 before playing at league-leading Utah on April 5-7.
BYU returns home to play for the first time in newly-constructed Miller Park on April 12 against New Mexico. Game time for the April 13 BYU-UNM game has been moved up one hour to 5 p.m.
