Win Streak to 10; DSC Doubles Up Academy

13-run inning highlights Storm sweep of Knights

CF Brett Adams joins coach Trent Pratt at 3rd base

Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 ST. GEORGE, UTAH – Preston Grimes (Taylorsville, UT/Taylorsville) and Bryce Anderson (Cedar City, UT/Cedar HS) each tossed five innings in Saturday starts and got enough offensive support to give the host Dixie State baseball team a four-game series sweep of Academy of Art University defeating the Knights 17-3 and 5-2 in doubleheader play at Bruce Hurst Field.

Dixie State (21-9, 14-6 PWC) extend a season-long win streak to 10 games and crept to within two games of conference leader Hawaii Pacific. The Knights of AAU (2-24, 2-14) dropped their tenth straight and eighth in-a-row in Pacific West play.

Grimes (4-3) cruised through five scoreless innings in game one scattering two hits and striking out four. The lone senior starter in DSC's rotation has allowed one run in his last 11 innings.

The DSC bats slugged 13 hits including six that went for extra bases. The Storm opened the scoring in the third inning. Brett Adams (Sandy, UT/Alta) looped an RBI single, Tony Nelson (St. George. UT/Dixie) doubled home another, Rhett Welsh (Arvada, CO/Standley Lake) singled in Adams and Ammon Zitting (Pleasant Grove. UT/Lone Peak) wrapped up the offense with an RBI sacrifice fly.

Leading 4-0, DSC pounded AAU for 13 runs on eight hits in the fourth inning sending 16 batters to the plate. Seven runs were off of home runs – Adams' three-run blast down the left field line and a pinch-hit grand slam from Chase Pittsenbarger (Las Vegas, NV/Las Vegas). Drew Oldfield (Aurora, CO/Rangeview) had 3RBI in the inning swatting a single and two-run double.

Jeff Smith (0-2), making his first start of the year, was hit for 11 runs on nine hits in 3.1 innings and Kallen Fletcher allowed six runs on four hits over the final 2.2 innings.

The series finale saw the Knights break through for a 1-0 lead in the second. Alex Rosenthal tripled off Anderson and scored on a wild pitch.

DSC responded with a five-run blitz in the home second. Judd Jensen tied the game with a double to right. Zitting's RBI single and an Aaron Friend (Las Vegas. NV/Centennial HS) double made it 3-1. An untimely balk from AAU starter Darnell Quinney scored Zitting.

The final tally came in an unorthodox way. With Friend at third, Colton Yack (South Jordan, UT/Bingham) struck out on what many thought was a dropped third strike. Yack ran toward first, but the Knights' catcher threw the ball back to the pitcher. Hurried, Quinney fired and overthrew the first-baseman allowing Friend to score from third. The umpires huddled and determined Yack was out on the strikeout without a dropped ball, but since the play was still live, the error on Quinney counted and Friend's run remained on the board.

Anderson, the freshman right from Cedar City, improved to 2-0 giving up one run on three hits. Todd Morlock (Magna, UT /Taylorsville) struck out two in the final inning to wrap up save number seven.

Welsh and Zitting each tallied a pair of hits in the finale.

Dixie State will return to the ballpark Tuesday night for a series opening game with Cal Baptist University. The non-conference matchup at home begins with first pitch at 6:00pm. The two-game series concludes Wednesday afternoon at 1:00pm.

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