Dixie State used a big seventh-inning rally to erase an early deficit and claim a 5-3 victory over Cal State San Bernardino in the Storm's season opener Friday at Bruce Hurst Field.

After a scoreless opening two frames, the Coyotes (2-2) took advantage of three costly Storm errors to plate three unearned runs off of DSU starter Dylan File (St. George, Utah/Desert Hills HS) (ND). All three CSUSB runs came in on one play as a dropped fly ball and throwing error put Dixie State in an early hole.

The run support bolstered Coyote starter Tyler Wells (ND), as the righthander held the Storm without a hit until the fourth inning when junior 2B Drew McLaughlin (Scottsdale, Ariz./Desert Mountain HS) led off the stanza with a sharp single through the left side. However DSU could not get anything going against Wells, who limited the Storm to just two hits over six shutout innings.

CSUSB turned the game over to its bullpen in the seventh, and the Storm took advantage as sophomore DH Cam Gust (Riverton, Utah/Riverton HS) drew a walk to lead off the frame, took second on a wild pitch, and scored DSU's first run of the game on a Trey Kamachi (Kapolei, Hawai'i/Kapolei HS) single to trim the lead to 3-1. DSU catcher Reece Lucero (Albuquerque, N.M./La Cueva HS) followed that up with a free pass of his own, which led to another Coyote pitching change.

Junior outfielder Miles Bice (Henderson, Nev./Coronado HS) followed with a sacrifice bunt to advance the runners, and senior SS Tanner Morache (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada/Surrey HS) cleared the bases with a two-run triple to left field to knot the score at 3-3. McLaughlin then stepped up and executed a perfect suicide-squeeze bunt to bring home Morache with the go-ahead run to give the Storm their first lead of the night at 4-3. The Storm would tack on an insurance two batters later as senior 1B Samuel Hall (Ogden, Utah/Bonneville HS) plated junior 3B Tyler Mildenberg (Huntington Beach, Calif./Marina HS), who singled and stole second ahead of the Hall safety.

Dixie State's bullpen came up big in its first real test of the season as the combination of freshman Preston Hannay (Murray, Utah/Murray HS) (W, 1-0) and seniors Kolton Brost (Mona, Utah/Payson HS) and Jeremy Alderman (Cheney, Wash./Cheney HS) (S, 1) limited the Coyotes to just one hit over four scoreless innings of relief to close out the game.

"I'm really excited about our bullpen, the guys threw well, especially [Preston] Hannay, it was good to get a freshman in there," DSU Head Coach Chris Pfatenhauer said. "Our pitching kept us in it and gave us a chance. [Wells] was really good and we were lucky we got into [CSUSB] bullpen and our guys handled the bat well. We stayed in the grind, we didn't roll over and we stayed with it."

DSU outhit the Coyotes 7-3, with Kamachi and Hall collecting two hits apiece to lead the Storm offense. File was solid in his season debut as he fanned eight and limited the Coyotes to just two hits over his five innings of work.

Dixie State and CSUSB will continue their four-game series on Saturday with a doubleheader beginning at 11 a.m. (MT).