Published: May 05, 2008 08:36 am            

Mr. Smith’s day

Utah Valley State hurler tosses complete game in 11-3 victory

Bryan Smith went into Sunday hoping Utah Valley State could salvage at least one weekend victory.

Nine innings and 153 pitches later, he led the Wolverines to a big upset.

UVS — which has an RPI of 261 out of 296 NCAA Division-I teams — stunned No. 9 Oklahoma State, 11-3, in front of 1,133 fans at Allie P. Reynolds Stadium. In the first complete game of his career, Smith allowed eight hits and a pair of walks while striking out 11.

“I’m not sure it’s sunk in yet,” the senior right-hander said. “I felt amazing the whole week and knew I had been pitching well.”

OSU coach Frank Anderson added, “I was really impressed with the way he competed. If (the contest) had gone 10 innings, he probably would’ve gone out there and thrown again. He wasn’t worried about anything other than trying to beat us.”

The Cowboys are the highest ranked opponent UVS (13-31-1) has defeated since joining D-I five years ago. Meanwhile, O-State (35-12) saw its 12-game winning streak — the program’s longest win streak in a decade — come to an end.

“I thought (the Wolverines) played with a lot more effort and passion than we did,” Anderson said. “They just came out and played harder. This game rewards effort and I didn’t think our effort was good enough.”

UVS, which lost the first three games of the series by a combined score of 28-8, jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning, but a two-run single by junior Luis Flores evened the score in the second.

However, Adam Openshaw led off the fourth with a solo home run which sparked a four-run inning for the Wolverines. Freshman Thomas Belza’s RBI groundout narrowed the gap to 6-3 in the sixth but UVS tacked on two runs in the seventh and three more in the ninth.

“This has to be our biggest win,” said coach Steve Gardner, who is retiring at the end of the season after 18 years at the UVS helm. “Bryan just kept them off balance and I couldn’t be more proud of him.”

The Cowboys, who had the nation’s seventh-best RPI, went through six pitchers Sunday with sophomore Tyler Blandford picking up the loss. Blandford (3-4) continued to struggle as he went just three innings and gave up four hits and three earned runs.

“He’s got really good stuff and he needs to understand how good his stuff is and have enough confidence in his ability to get through it,” Anderson said. “At some point, he’s going to be really good.”

Junior Jordy Mercer was the only Cowboy with multiple hits as he went 2-for-5 with a double.

Junior Donnie Webb went 1-for-3 with a double and senior Matt Hague — who hurled the final 2 2/3 innings and recorded five strikeouts — went 1-for-4 and extended his season-best hitting streak to 11 games.

“We just came out flat,” said senior Rebel Ridling, who went 1-for-4 with a double. “We didn’t come out and play as hard as we should have. After you beat a team a couple of times, you can get relaxed and in baseball, that’s not how it works.

“You’ve got to come out every day because anybody can beat anybody on any given day. This will be a reminder that we can’t just go out there and expect people to lay down.”

O-State heads to Houston on Wednesday for a 6:30 p.m. showdown with No. 7 Rice, a club that advanced to the College World Series a year ago. The Cowboys then play their final weekend home series of the season starting Friday when Texas Tech comes to town.

        

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