Dixie State opened up its final home series of the 2021 season with a 6-3 decision over Northern Colorado on a very windy Thursday night at Bruce Hurst Field. The Trailblazers pushed their winning streak to five-straight with the victory and improved to 20-30 overall, 18-15 in WAC play.

After spotting the Bears (11-33/7-21 WAC) a 1-0 first-inning lead, DSU took the lead for good with two runs in both the fourth and fifth frames to bolt to a 4-1 advantage. Mathew Ivancich got the Blazers on the board with a one-out RBI single in the fourth, then two batters later, Shane Taylor gave his side the lead for good with a run-scoring base knock of his own.

Tyson Fisher made a three-run cushion in the home fifth, when after a Kaden Hollow one-out walk, the sophomore third baseman launched his seventh home run of the year well over the wall in left center.

Meanwhile, freshman hurler Dillon Holliday (W, 5-2) settled in after surrendering that first-inning run to earn his team-leading fifth win of the season. Holliday retired 18 of the next 22 UNC hitters he faced, including a career-high seven on strikes, before being lifted with two outs in the seventh inning after the Bears plated an unearned run.

Northern Colorado would go on to score another unearned run in the eighth to make it a 4-3 game, but the Blazers would get both of those runs back in bottom of the stanza with a two-run Lane Pritchard opposite field homer to left field.

Junior reliever Jack Gonzales (S, 2), who came on to get the final out in the seventh, worked around a one-out walk in the ninth to close out the win and send UNC to its eighth-straight loss. Gonzales struck out five and held the Bears to three safeties over his 2.1 innings of work.

Fisher and Ivancich each tallied two hits as the Blazers outhit UNC by an 8-7 count.

The two teams will play the middle pair of their four-game weekend set on Friday afternoon beginning at 2:05 p.m.