Box score

NEWARK, NJ—Utah Valley returned to its winning ways in Great West Conference baseball, scoring eight times in the second inning Sunday en route to a 9-2 win over NJIT in the finale of a four-game series at Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium.
 
The Wolverines, who suffered their first conference loss since 2011 in a 9-7 defeat at the hands of NJIT in the second game of Saturday's doubleheader between the teams, got back on track Sunday behind a strong three-man pitching performance and an eight-run second inning.
 
Utah Valley, which is now 79-5 all-time in Great West Conference regular season games (plus 12-0 in GWC postseason tournament play), had won 31 straight regular season conference games when it fell to NJIT in the nightcap Saturday after taking the first two games of the 2013 conference-opening series.
 
Sunday's win gave UVU a 12-18 overall record for the season after taking three of four in the opening conference series. NJIT falls to 9-17 overall and is 1-3 in the conference.
 
The getaway game was all but over by the time the Highlanders came to the plate in the bottom of the second inning, as Utah Valley scored once in the opening inning and then combined six hits with three costly Highlander errors for eight runs, seven of which were unearned, in the top of the sixth.
 
NJIT, which committed all four of its errors for the game in the first three innings, cleaned up its fielding and got six innings of shutout relief, but the Highlanders managed just two runs, one in the sixth and one in the seventh, against the three Wolverine pitchers.
 
Junior RHP Andrew Freter (2-2) started and blanked NJIT for five innings on four hits and three walks with two strikeouts. Senior right-hander Brian Whatcott worked the next three innings and allowed the two NJIT runs (one earned), yielding four hits and a walk with two strikeouts and sophomore LHP Chris Conran pitched a scoreless ninth, allowing a hit and striking out two.
 
Kyle Burdi, a senior right-hander making his first start of 2013 and just his fourth start since his freshman year at NJIT, when he started 10 times, and junior RHP Joe Fasano, the first reliever, took the full brunt of Utah Valley's nine runs in the opening two innings.
 
Burdi (0-1) pitched 1.2 innings and allowed seven runs (two earned) on six hits and Fasano went 1.1 innings, allowing two hits and two unearned runs. Each notched one strikeout without a walk.
 
They were followed by two relievers who were nearly spotless in their first appearances of 2013. Junior RHP Frank Shivers, who missed all of the 2012 season due to injury, pitched three scoreless innings with a hit, a walk and a strikeout, while sophomore RHP Zach Emmett also pitched three shutout innings and allowed just a walk and no hits, also striking out one.
 
Utah Valley, with nine hits in the game, got two apiece from LF Beau Kallas, DH Stone Ramsey, RF Riley White, and 1B Spencer Gothberg. White had a two-run double in the big second inning and 3B Greyson Bogden (1-for-5) doubled to open the game, setting up the first Wolverine run.
 
Ramsey, a freshman who did not play on Friday, played the last three series games, hitting a combined 8-for-11, including three doubles and a triple, with four runs scored and four batted in. He had one RBI and scored once Sunday.
 
NJIT matched Utah Valley in hits with nine, but they were all singles, including two each for SS Nick Swim, DH Stephan Halibej, and RF Andrew Benjamin. Halibej and 1B Tom Bouck (1-for-3) each drove in a run.
 
Utah Valley's first run came after Bogden led off the game with a double and later scored while NJIT was turning a double play.
 
The Wolverines took control with the eight-run second inning, helped significantly by the three Highlander errors in the frame. White hit his first double of the game and of the inning leading off and Gothberg singled into the shortstop hole before the first Highlander error on a sacrifice bunt enabled White to cross the plate with the inning's first run. An error on the next play saw the second run cross the plate and Kallas and Ramsey, and Gothberg all had run-scoring singles later in the inning with the scoring capped by White's two-out, two-run bloop double to left field.
 
NJIT finally plated an unearned run in the bottom of the sixth inning, as Halibej drew a one-out walk and later scored after back-to-back singles by 2B Jeff Peterson and Bouck, who picked up the run batted in. Halibej figured in the second Highlander run an inning later, singling to drive in CF Nick Rabasco, who had been hit by a pitch with two out and moved up to second base on Swim's single.
 
NJIT is scheduled for a non-conference game against Rider on Wednesday at 3:30 pm at Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium. Rider won two out of three when the teams met earlier on March 23 and 24.