Utah Tech used a big fourth inning and a dominant pitching performance from Brandon Kosel to complete a four-game, season-opening series road sweep at UC Riverside with an 8-1 victory on Sunday afternoon at the Riverside Sports Complex.
 
This weekend's sweep is the program's fifth season-opening series sweep in the program's NCAA era, and is the first in Utah Tech's time as a Division I program.
 
Utah Tech also posted four-game series sweeps to begin the 2012, 2016 and 2017 seasons, and recorded a three-game sweep to open the  2020 campaign, which was the program's last Division II season. 
 
The two teams were locked in a pitchers' duel through the first three innings before the Trailblazer bats broke through with a six-run fourth to race out to a commanding lead.
 
Utah Tech (4-0/0-0 WAC) opened the frame with three-straight hits, with Miller Durham and Cooper Smith each reaching on singles ahead of Ty Johnsen, who split the gap in right center with a double to chase home Durham with the game's first run.
 
Petey Soto Jr. made it a 3-0 game with a sacrifice flyout to left, and after Kyle McDaniel was walked to load the bases, Hudson Manwaring, Ryan Kroepel and Finnegan Stewart all singled in runs as the Blazers sent 11 batters to the plate in the frame. 
 
Meanwhile, Kosel (W, 1-0) was dealing in his Trailblazer debut. The junior righthander faced only two batters over the minimum with four strikeouts over 6.1 innings of three-hit shutout baseball.
 
Not to be outdone, the Utah Tech defense made several big plays behind Kosel to help keep the Highlanders (0-4) off the scoreboard. 
 
Utah Tech went on to add insurance runs in both the seventh and eighth innings, Blazer relievers Brock Roundy and Jonah Marshall combined to limit UCR to one run and two hits the rest of the way. 
 
Nine Trailblazer hitters had at least one base hit as Utah Tech outhit UCR 11-5, led by Stewart and Johnsen with two hits apiece. Johnsen legged out two doubles and finished with two RBI, while Kroepel drove in a game-high three runs.
 
Junior second baseman Kyle McDaniel went 1-for-4 with two walks to extend his NCAA era school record on-base streak to 46-straight games, and his career-long hit streak to 17 games. 
 
Utah Tech continues its California road swing with a Tuesday midweek date at CSU Bakersfield. First pitch at Hardt Field on the CSUB campus is set for 7:30 p.m. (MT).