Box score

NEWARK, NJ—NJIT and Utah Valley opened the Great West Conference baseball schedule with a marquee pitching matchup and UVU came out on top, 3-1, Friday afternoon at Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium.
 
The game pitted two senior starting pitchers who were first-team all-GWC in 2012. Both aces lived up to their past accolades, as Utah Valley right-hander Adam Gunn (3-4), the reigning conference Pitcher of the Year, got the better of NJIT left-hander Tripp Davis (0-5). UVU is 10-17 overall and NJIT is 8-15.
 
Utah Valley, which has won all three previous Great West baseball regular season and postseason crowns, ran its conference winning streak to 30 consecutive games. In three full seasons plus Friday's 2013 GWC opener, the Wolverines are a surreal-appearing 77-4 in conference regular season games, plus 12-0 in the postseason tournaments.
 
Gunn, 8-3 a year ago, pitched the first seven innings Friday and did not allow a run, yielding three hits, two walks and two hit batters, with seven strikeouts. Senior lefty Jeff Barto earned his second save of the season for UVU, pitching the last two innings and allowing a run on two hits. Barto struck out one and walked none.
 
Davis, who was dominant early for NJIT, facing the minimum 17 batters to get the first 17 outs, took the loss despite a strong line of eight innings pitched, with seven hits, two runs, a walk and eight strikeouts.
 
Still winless in five decisions and eight starts, Davis has deserved better. Friday's game against Utah Valley marked the fifth time this season the senior has gone at least six innings and allowed two or fewer earned runs without getting a win.
 
Sophomore RHP Bill VanMeerbeke worked the ninth inning for the Highlanders, allowing a two-out solo home run to UVU catcher Taylor Berg that gave the visitors a 3-1 advantage.
 
All three Utah Valley runs, which came in the sixth, eighth, and ninth innings, were scored with two out. Indeed six of the eight Wolverine hits came with two outs. The exceptions were their first hit, a one-out opposite field flare to right field for DH Beau Kallas, and a leadoff single by LF Kade Andrus in the seventh inning and neither hit figured in the scoring. NJIT, which managed five hits, got its only run on a one-out home run to left field by 3B Mike Rampone, his first homer of the season.
 
The first three men in the Utah Valley batting order—3B Greyson Bogden, Kallas, and Andrus—all got two hits apiece, with runs batted in going to Bogden, Andrus and Berg. The Wolverine extra-base hits were the Berg home run, a double for Bogden, and a triple by RF Riley White, who soon scored the first UVU run.
 
Rampone, a sophomore playing third base instead of his normal second base in an NJIT infield shuffled by injury, was the only Highlander with more than one hit, going 2-for-4. His home run and double were the home team's only extra-base hits.   
 
Davis had faced the minimum number of batters through 5.2 innings when Utah Valley rallied for the game's first run in the sixth inning. UVU, with two outs and just one hit in the game to that point, got a triple to right field from the number nine hitter, White, and Bogden followed with a run-scoring single to right.
 
NJIT had scoring chances in the half-inning that preceded the first Wolverine run and in the half-inning that followed, but did not score in either frame. The preceding chance with the game still scoreless was more a matter of "what if" than a clear threat. With one out and speedy LF Nick Rabasco on first base, Highlander CF Ed Charlton, who hit the ball well all day, but went 0-for-4, smoked his team's hardest hit ball to that point. But the sharp grounder was right at Bogden, the slick-fielding freshman UVU third baseman, who started an inning-ending 5-4-3 double play when a ball hit a few feet to either side almost certainly would have gone for extra bases. Down 1-0 an inning later, the Highlanders got two baserunners with one out, but couldn't do anything more with the threat.
 
Utah Valley picked up another two-out run in the eighth inning. Bogden hit a double toward the left field corner and Kallas dunked a ball just beyond the infield for a single into right, making it 2-0. Andrus added a single after Kallas, but NJIT's Davis got the final out, leaving two men on base in what would be his last inning of work.   
 
Rampone put the Highlanders on the board and back within a run with a one-out shot high over the left field fence in the bottom of the eighth inning. However, Utah Valley got the run right back in the top of the ninth on the two-out homer by Berg, whose line drive off of the reliever VanMeerbeke cleared the fence just fair close to the left field foul pole.
 
2B Jeff Peterson led off the NJIT half of the ninth inning with a single, but back to facing a two-run deficit instead of a one-run gap, the Highlanders could not afford to give up an out with a sacrifice bunt. Instead, RF Tyler Kapp, swinging away, grounded into his team's third double play of the  game and Barto, the UVU reliever, then recorded the last out to nail down the save.  
 
NJIT and Utah Valley will play a conference doubleheader on Saturday starting at 1 pm. As with all scheduled Great West Conference doubleheaders, the first game is slated for seven innings and the second game is scheduled for nine innings.