Utah Tech suffered its first loss of the 2026 season in a 4-3 pitcher's duel at Pacific in the first game of a three-game weekend series on Thursday night at Klein Family Field.
The Trailblazers (5-1/0-0 WAC) found themselves in an early 2-0 hole as the first five Tiger hitters reached on junior starter
Tyler Ray. However Ray was able to limit the damage as he and Utah Tech escaped the bases loaded jam.
Ray settled in from there, retiring seven of the next 10 Pacific hitters he faced over the next three innings, while his defense turned a pair of double plays behind him in the second and fourth frames.
Meanwhile, the Blazers had traffic on the base paths in their first four offensive innings but could not crack the scoreboard.
That all changed in the fifth as Utah Tech was able to push across one run to cut the Tiger lead in half at 2-1.
Kyle McDaniel blooped a one-out double to center and took third on a
Hudson Manwaring single. Then with two outs in the frame, McDaniel tried to advance home on a passed ball. The throw from the catcher beat the Blazer second baseman to the plate, but McDaniel was able to sidestep the tag to score Utah Tech's first run.
Pacific (3-2) managed to get that run back in the home fifth, only to see Utah Tech claw back again to within a run in the seventh thanks to a two-out Manwaring RBI-single.
The Tigers clapped back an inning later with a big insurance run in the home eighth, which came on a two-out Rylan Evans home run.
That run proved to be the difference when with runners on the corners and two out in the top of the ninth, Manwaring came through one more time with an RBI-single that pulled the Trailblazers to within a run.
Unfortunately that would be as close as Utah Tech would get as Tiger reliever Carson Revay got
Ryan Kroepel to fly out to deep center field to end the game.
Utah Tech lost despite outhitting Pacific by a 10-9 count, with Manwaring leading the way with a season-high three hits to go with his two RBI. Meanwhile
Kace Naone collected two base hits and scored two runs after entering the game as a pinch hitter in the seventh inning.
McDaniel also tallied two hits with one run scored, and in the process extended his NCAA era school record on-base streak to 47-straight games, and his career-long hit streak to 20 games.
McDaniel's 20-game hit streak is currently the second-longest in Utah Tech's four-year era. He now stands one game away from tying former Blazer slugger Jake Engel's school record 21-game streak set over a span of three seasons, including the COVID-19 pandemic shortened 2020 season, from 2019-21.
Ray (L, 1-1) pitched into the fifth inning, surrendering three runs and five hits with a season-high four strikeouts. Senior reliever
Aaron Morris came on in the fifth and scattered one run on four hits with three punch outs in 3.2 innings of solid relief.
The two teams will play the middle game of their three-game weekend series on Friday night beginning at 7 p.m. (MT).
