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SALT LAKE CITY — Washington escaped a late-game rally to beat Utah in the first game of a three-game series to determine the Pac-12 champion Friday.
Washington’s Chris Baker hit a triple to right field in the ninth inning to send Jack Meggs home to give the Huskies a 5-4 lead and ultimately the win. Utah failed to score a run in the bottom of the ninth, giving the Huskies a win.
Washington was the first to get on the board with a solo home run shot by Joey Morgan in the fourth inning. The next at-bat, K.J. Brady hit a shot to right center for a triple, followed by a successful bunt by Levi Jordan to send Brady home.
The Huskies continued with the strong hitting attack in the fifth inning, following a rough performance by Utah ace pitcher Jayson Rose. Washington’s Kyle London hit a single to start things off in the inning, followed by an RBI single by Baker. Washington eventually loaded the bases before Rose walked Morgan to send Baker home to give the Huskies a 4-0 lead.
Rose rebounded, however, and got the Utes out of the inning and managed to settle down his pitching and put in a solid three more innings. Utah manager Bill Kinneberg said he was pleased with the rebound, particularly because Utah was a “pitch away from taking him out in the fifth.”
“(Jayson) wasn’t really sharp through the first five innings. He was missing spots and not really sharp with his breaking ball and changeup, but I’m really proud of him, the way that after that fifth inning he gave us three more innings that were really positive,” Kinneberg said. “They were quick innings and Jayson Rose of old. I was really proud of his performance for the way that he bounced back in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings.”
Despite the rocky fifth inning, Rose said he wasn’t shaken by his performance.
“That fifth was rough,” Rose said. “They had two runs and a lot of pitches. I just tried to regain my focus and go back out there. I got stronger as the game went on and I was able to help my team out like I wanted to.”
Rose would end the game pitching eight innings, 130 pitches, four earned runs, four BB and six strikeouts. Rose tied the Utah all-time single-season strikeout record at 102.
“I knew I was close, but I didn’t know I was that close. I should have gotten one more, but oh well,” he said. “It’s an hour to be at the top of the list at Utah. I think it’s a nice thing to have.” Utah got it rolling in the sixth with Cody Scaggari, Dallas Carroll and Hunter Simmons all getting a single to load the bases before Andre Jackson hit a three-run RBI shot to left field. Jackson, however, was called out at third base when trying to extend the play to a triple. Carroll tied it up with a line-drive shot to right field in the seventh inning, sending Kody Davis home, who was on third base.
Utah will continue its series with Washington Saturday at 12 p.m. at Smith’s Ballpark in Salt Lake City. Utah would need to win the next two games to win the outright Pac-12 championship; however, a split in the next two games would mean Utah and Washington would share the conference championship.
“We’ve got to start over. Our backs are against the wall,” Kinneberg said. “We’ve been in this all year. We had it Friday night where we came back and won both games on the road; we’ve done that before. We’ve just got to get it done. We’ve got to play tomorrow and forget about Sunday.”
“We’ve lost a lot of first-game series, so we’ve been in this situation a million times, so we’ll pull out two victories,” Rose said. “It would have been great to be able to pull out the first one just so we had momentum going into the weekend, but not winning this one isn’t that big of a deal. We’ll come back even stronger and hopefully we can get them.”
