BYU
Baseball
Former Cougar Rett Varner pitched UT Arlington to a 6-3 victory over BYU Friday night.
The Texas junior, who was on the BYU team in 2007, got out of some jams against the Cougars and got a big four-run fourth inning from his Maverick teammates.
Wes Guenther hit a lead-off homer, BYU's second of the season, in the fifth inning to put BYU on the board. Sean McNaughton hit a two-out double and was singled in by Brandon Relf. Guenther scored BYU's final run of the game in the ninth inning.
Cougars Jonathan Cluff and Alex Wolfe lost hitting streaks of six and five games, respectively.
BYU, now 3-7, have one more game against the 4-5 Mavericks today.
Men's Tennis
Corpus Christi, Texas - At the HEB Tournament of Champions, the No. 23 BYU men's tennis team picked up two more wins Friday --No. 63 Middle Tennessee 4-1 and DePaul 4-0--to advance to today's tournament final against No. 18 Texas Tech.
"Our main goal was to tough out the early rounds," BYU coach Brad Pearce said. "Our reward for doing that is the opportunity to play a top-20 team and we want those opportunities."
Against Middle Tennessee, the Cougars came from behind by winning four straight singles' matches to earn the victory.
"It was a tough physical match," Pearce said. "We've lost to them a few times in the past and it was satisfying to get a win."
In the afternoon match against DePaul, BYU took the lead early and never let go.
"We wanted to come out and get a good start against DePaul," Pearce said. "I was proud of our guys for winning first sets on all courts."
Defending champion Texas Tech is the only team standing between BYU and its first crown at the HEB Tournament of Champions. The 9-1 Red Raiders beat BYU 4-0 when the two schools matched up last year. They have two ranked doubles teams and two of their singles players are ranked.
"Our guys will be ready and excited for Texas Tech," Pearce said. "Win or lose, they're going to play their hearts out."
The finals begin at noon CT Saturday at the HEB Tennis Center.
UVU
Basketball
OREM, Utah - The Utah Valley University men's basketball team will close out the 2009-10 regular season Saturday when the Wolverines host Seattle University at 2 p.m. at the UVU Events Center. Seniors Jordan Swarbrick, Jourdain Scoubes and Tyray Petty will be playing their final regular-season home games as Wolverines.
The game can be seen live UVU-TV or heard on 1400 KSTAR with Steve Watts calling the play-by-play or on the Internet at www.wolverinegreen.com.
The Wolverines enter the contest after beating NJIT, 65-57, in Great West Conference action Thursday night, while Redhawks enter the game having won their last three games (San Jose State, CS Bakersfield, Portland State) and seven of their last eight.
The Redhawks won the first-ever meeting with UVU, 66-63, on Jan. 16 in Seattle.
"Seattle is a very athletic and deep team that is well-coached," UVU head coach Dick Hunsaker said. "They banged us around and were very physical when they beat us in Seattle. They really try to put pressure on you defensively with multiple schemes."
In the first meeting, Utah Valley's three-point bid to send the contest with Seattle University fell short and the Wolverines dropped the 66-63 thriller.
Scoubes, who nailed three big second-half three-pointers to keep the Wolverines in the game, but he couldn't converted the three ball as time expired.
Scoubes led the Wolverines with 16 points, while Petty, who also knocked down a couple crucial three-point shots, and Swarbrick added 14 points each.
Gavin Gilmore and Chris Gweth led the Redhawks with 12 points each.
Charles Garcia leads the Redhawks in scoring at 19.1 points and 8.4 rebounds, and Cervante Burrell, Gweth and Aaron Boussard are averaging 11.2, 11.2, and 10.5 points per game, respectively.
• UVU baseball: At Surprise, Arizona, Utah Valley dropped a narrow decision for the second straight day, falling 8-6 to Cal Poly.
Jace Brinkerhoff followed up his four-hit game on thursday by getting three more hits and an RBI. Chris Benson had a pair of hits and drove in two while Kevin Arendse also had two RBI for the Wolverines (4-5).
Ross Brayton led the Mustangs (4-5) with three hits. Brayton came up with the hit of the game in the seventh inning, driving in two runs to give Cal Poly the lead for good.
After falling behind 3-0 early, Utah Valley had a two-out rally in the fourth to tie the game. Benson doubled to left to score Jason Zundel to get the Wolverines on the board. Austin Heaps followed with a single that moved Benson to third and then stole second before Arendse drove both runners home with a single to right.
Later, Billy Burgess led off the UVU's half of the sixth with his third homer of the year to put UVU up 4-3.
That lead was short-lived though as Cal Poly came back with four runs in the seventh. Three of the runs were unearned, thanks to two Wolverine errors.
Luke Yoder added a solo home run for Cal Poly in the eighth to give the Mustangs an 8-4 lead, his third home run of the year.
In the eighth, a Brinkerhoff double drove in Zundel and Benson singled to left field to drive in Brinkerhoff, making it an 8-6 game heading to the ninth.
UVU had a chance in the ninth but they couldn't pull it off. With two outs, Zundel popped out with Jake Rickenbach on base to end the game. UVU had a chance in the ninth after Jake Rickenbach drew a two-out walk to bring the tying run to the plate. Unfortunately, Zundel couldn't come through, popping out to cut short any Wolverine rally and end the game.
The Classic continues on Saturday with the Wolverines facing No. 10 Oregon State at 4 p.m. MT. Utah Valley will close out the weekend on Sunday at 1 p.m. MT against UC Riverside.
• UVU softball: At Fort Collins, Colo., the Wolverine softball team went down early to Utah State in the first game of the Colorado State Invitational Friday, and their comeback fell short in the 10-8 loss.
UVU dropped the second game of the day to Colorado State, 12-3.
"It comes down to that we have to be better at the basics and the details," UVU head coach Todd Fairbourne said. "When we don't take care of the details things can get ugly in a hurry and that's what happened."
Utah State scored five in the second, but the Wolverines answered with three in the bottom of the frame. In the inning, Kyli Flanary was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, Maggie Christianson drew a bases-loaded walk and Samantha Telarroja drove in a run with a single to cut the lead to 5-3.
The Aggies scored three more runs in the top of the third and UVU added single runs in the third and fourth before the Aggies scored in the sixth and seventh to lead 10-5.
Christianson belted a three-run homer in the bottom of the seventh to bring the Wolverines to within two.
Christianson finished with four RBI, while Telarroja had two in going 2-for-4 and Flanary and Amanda Perez had one RBI each.
In their second game of the day, the Wolverines dropped a 12-3 decision to Colorado State.
Perez drove in all three of UVU's runs with a three-run homer in the fourth. Mandy Tapia had the Wolverines' only other hit.
Today, the Wolverines play North Dakota State at 1 p.m. and South Dakota State at 3 p.m.
