SAN MARCOS, Texas – The Texas State baseball team (1-0) opened the 2019 campaign with an 8-3 victory over Utah (0-1) Friday night in the Texas State Tournament at Bobcat Ballpark. It was the first season opener victory for the Bobcats since 2016.
 
Striking first in the bottom of the first, TXST scored the first run of the game on a sacrifice fly by Skyler Valentine. Following a single from John Wuthrich, Ryan Newman hit a deep groundball to third and beat out the throw for an infield single. Wuthrich never stopped as he rounded second and slide into third while the Utes first baseman's throw got past the third baseman to allow the sophomore to score the second run of the frame.
 
Utah scored twice in the next half inning to tie the game. They Utes's Erick Migueles plated another run in the third on his single up the middle to put the visitors up 3-2.
 
Newman waited for his pitch and found it on a 2-2 offering in the bottom of the fourth. He smashed the ball over the right field fence for a solo home run to tie the game at 3-3. It was his 20th career homer to tie Anthony Dominguez for 14th on the program's career list.
 
The next inning began with Jaylen Hubbard singling up the middle and later advancing to second on a wild pitch. He would move over to third when Valentine flew out to deep right field. Two batters later with runners on the corner, Cole Coffey ripped a single back up the middle to place a run. Jaxon Williams followed with another single that scored a run and increased the lead to 5-3 after five frames.
 
After a scoreless sixth, Wuthrich tripled to right field as the ball caromed off the fence and the Ute outfield ran into it with one gone in the seventh. The Midland, Texas native advance the final 90 feet when Newman hit a sacrifice fly deep to center field to make it a three-run advantage.
 
Jacob Almendarez singled up the middle as Williams was going on the pitch to bring him home in the eighth. Following a Utah pitching change, Almendarez came around to score after only pitch and Dalton Shuffield not swinging the bat. The first offering from Zac McCleve was wide and missed handled by the catcher for a passed ball to move Almendarez to second. The umps then called McCleve for back-to-back balks to allow the senior to cross home plate for the final run of the game.
 
Nicholas Fraze threw 6.1 innings with two strikeouts while allowing three runs on four hits to earn the victory. Brandon Lewis tossed the final 2.2 innings without giving up a run and striking out one to earn his first career save.
 
Taking the loss for the Utes was Kyle Robeniol. He tossed the first 4.1 innings and gave up seven hits and four runs.
 
Hubbard, Newman, Williams and Wuthrich all recorded two hits on the night. Wuthrich was the only player to score multiple times, doing so three times.
 
With his two base knocks, Hubbard now has 182 career hits to move ahead of graduate assistant coach Kyle Kubitza and tie Granger Studdard for 11th-place. The redshirt senior moved into a tie for 13 in career at-bats with Garrett Mattlage with 591 and passed Bobcat legend Paul Goldschmidt in the process.
 
TXST continues the Texas State Tournament tomorrow at 4 p.m. against Nevada.
 
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