Utah Tech was done in by a late-inning Maverick barrage as the Trailblazers opened their final home WAC series of the 2025 season on the wrong end of an 11-1 loss to UT Arlington in eight innings on Friday night at Bruce Hurst Field.
 
The Trailblazers found themselves down 3-0 after UTA (18-27/10-9 WAC) opened the scoring with one run in the first, before a two-run Xavier Melendez third inning home run spotted the Mavericks with a three-run cushion.
 
Utah Tech (19-27/5-14 WAC) managed to get one of those runs back in the bottom of the third when Kyle McDaniel doubled down the left field line to chase Ethan Royal home from first base.
 
Junior righthander Ryan Martinez (L, 2-3) settled in after the rocky start, retiring 11 of the next 16 Maverick hitters he faced, which included the Blazers' WAC-leading 44^th double play of the season in the fourth. 

Meanwhile the Trailblazers had their chances to tie or take the lead in the middle innings. However the Utah Tech offense wound up stranding two runners in both the fourth and fifth frames, and left another runner on the base paths in the sixth. 
 
The game remained at 3-1 until the UTA seventh, when with two outs the Mavericks struck for a pair of big insurance runs, and in the process, chased Martinez from the game. 
 
UTA then blew the game open with a six-run eighth inning, and kept the Blazers off the scoreboard in the home half of the stanza to end the game via the 10-run rule. 
 
Utah Tech pounded out eight hits on the night, with Royal and Ryan Kroepel each collecting two hits apiece.
 
McDaniel, who has now hit safely in 16 of his last 17 games overall, extended his Division I-era school record on-base streak to 32-straight games with his third inning RBI-double. McDaniel's current streak is now the third-longest streak in the program's NCAA era overall. 
 
The Trailblazers will look to even the series at a game apiece in game two on Saturday afternoon beginning at 2:05 p.m. (MT).