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Freshman Devina Quintero drove in the winning run for Utah in Saturday's win.
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April 3, 2004
SALT LAKE CITY--Utah used a come from behind victory to tie the game and force extra innings before defeating San Diego State 4-3 on Saturday afternoon. The win moves Utah to 10-20 overall and 2-1 in league play, while SDSU falls to 22-18, 1-2 in the Mountain West Conference.
Celena Valasquez cruised through the first three innings of play, retiring every Ute batter she faced. In the meantime, San Diego State scored a run in the second off a solo shot by Kelcy Murphy. The Aztecs punched in another run in the third, when Janna Kovensky singled in Meagan Hartung.
Utah would show its first sign of offense in the fourth. The leadoff batter, Lynsey Wall, connected for a solo home run to left field. The run cut the lead in half for Utah. The Aztecs would post another run in the top of the sixth using an RBI single by Lacey Craft.
Down 3-1, Utah rallied in the bottom of the sixth to tie the game at three all. Lynsey Wall reached on an infield single and then advanced to second on an Aztec error. Bryanne Durrence would then single up the middle to put runners at the corners for Utah with no outs. The next batter, Glennis Donnelly, connected for a single to left to bring in Wall and move Durrence to second. After Melissa Stahnke reached on a fielder's choice that put out Durrence, the Aztec second baseman would make two errors on a grounder by Devina Quintero that would allow Donnelly to cross the plate.
The two teams would battle through the next couple innings, both with chances to score. Then in the 11th inning, the international tie-breaker rule was put into affect via the NCAA rulebook. San Diego State moved its runner to third after a sacrifice bunt. But, Brianna Gourdin would get the next two batters to hit infield groundouts to hold the Aztecs at three runs. In the latter of the inning, Utah's cleanup batter Stahnke laid down a perfect bunt to advance Donnelly from second to third. The next batter, Quintero, would hit a deep ball to right field to score Donnelly and give Utah the 4-3 victory.
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Sophomore Brianna Gourdin picked up the victory to improve to 8-3 on the year. Gourdin allowed 10 hits through the first six innings, but then settled down to allow just three more through the final five innings.
Cori Janelli is credited with the loss to fall to 6-8 this year. Janelli came on in relief of the starter Valasquez.
Overall, the game went 11 innings and lasted three hours. Wall led all hitters with three hits. The sophomore also scored two runs in the win.
