Brett Porthan struck out a career-high eight in seven solid innings as Utah Tech snapped a five-game slide and opened up Western Athletic Conference play with a 4-2 victory over New Mexico State on Friday night at Bruce Hurst Field. 
 
Porthan's (W, 3-2) night actually got off to an inauspicious start as Aggie lead-off hitter Mitch Namie connected for an opposite field home run to open the game. NM State (1-14/0-4 WAC) would follow that up with a one-out single, but the junior righthander induced an inning-ending double play to escape further trouble.
 
Utah Tech (6-13/1-0 WAC) used the long ball to take away that lead in the home first when after a Shane Taylor lead-off double, Chase Rodriguez rocketed an 0-2 TreyJen Meza (L, 0-4) offering over the right field wall to stake the Trailblazers to a 2-1 advantage.
 
UT stretched its lead to 3-1 one inning later with an RBI-double from catcher Hank Dodson. Meanwhile his batterymate limited NM State to just three hits and one unearned run over his final six innings of work, including retiring the final eight Aggies he faced. 
 
The Blazers managed to pick up a big insurance run in the seventh thanks with a clutch two-out single from Logan Jackson that chased home Taylor, who reached on his team-leading 17^th walk.
 
Sophomore southpaw Carsten Herman (S, 1) then came on and struck out the side in the eighth, and retired the Aggies in order in the ninth to record his first collegiate save. 
 
Taylor and Ethan He both doubled and collected two hits apiece as Utah Tech outhit the Aggies 8-5. 
 
The two teams will play the middle game of their three-game WAC weekend series on Saturday afternoon at 2:05 p.m.