Utah Tech pounded out three home runs, including a school record two grand slams, to power past Austin Peay, 15-11, in the first game of a four-game weekend series on Thursday night at Bruce Hurst Field.
 
With the victory, Utah Tech won its seventh-straight game and improved to 12-1 on the season, which is now tied for the best overall start to a season in the program's NCAA era (12-1 in 2013). 
 
The Trailblazers bolted out to a quick 2-0 first inning advantage thanks to RBI-singles from Ryan Kroepel and Finnegan Stewart.
 
Austin Peay (5-7), which hit three homers of its own on the night, got one of those runs back in the second with the first of two Ty Wisdom long balls. The Governors struck for four more runs in the fourth, taking advantage of two costly Blazer errors, to take their lone lead of the night at 5-2.
 
However that lead would be short-lived as Utah Tech clapped back with five two-out runs in the home fourth to jump back on top at 7-5.
 
The Trailblazers loaded the bases thanks to three APSU walks, and after a pitching change, Petey Soto Jr. cut the deficit to 5-3 with a sharp single to left field.
 
That brought up Blazer lead-off hitter Kyle McDaniel, who on a 3-2 Ryker Walton fastball, cleared the bases with first collegiate grand slam.
 
After Wisdom led off the Govs' fifth inning with his second solo shot that cut the Utah Tech lead in half, the Trailblazers loaded the bases again in the home half of the stanza, and Kace Naone unloaded them with his first homer of the year to stake his side with a commanding 11-6 lead.
 
Naone's grand slam was his first as a Trailblazer, and was the third slam Utah Tech had hit in its last six innings overall. Along with McDaniel's slam an inning earlier, Gavin Long hit Utah Tech's first grand slam of the season to walk-off Northern Colorado in a 6-4 win this past Sunday afternoon.
 
APSU clapped back with a two-run Zion Taylor long ball in the sixth, only to see the Blazers match it with two more runs in their next swings to maintain their five-run cushion.
 
The Govs threatened again in the seventh, when with a run in and the bases loaded with one out, Utah Tech called on Kroepel to move from third base to the mound to put out the fire.
 
Kroepel induced a fly out on the first pitch he threw, which allowed one run to score, while the Govs scratched across another run with a two-out single to trim the deficit to 13-11.
 
Kroepel managed to get both of those runs back with one swing of his bat in the home seventh when after a two-out Naone single, the junior slugger belted his third homer of the year well over the hitter's eye in straight-away center field.
 
Kroepel (S, 6) went on to strike out two APSU batters in the eighth, and worked around a one-out walk in the ninth to close out the victory and earn his Division-I leading sixth save.  
 
Utah Tech scored 15 on only 10 base hits, as the Blazers took advantage of six Governor walks and three hit batters.
 
The top-five hitters in the Trailblazer line-up combined for eight of the team's 10 safeties, while Soto Jr. had two hits and two runs scored out of the nine-hole in the order.
 
Naone, Kroepel and Stewart each had two hits apiece, while McDaniel's fourth-inning grand slam extended his on-base streak to 54-straight games. 
 
The two teams will play the middle two games of their four-game weekend series in a doubleheader on Friday beginning at 2:05 p.m. (MT).