By Hunter Jacobson
Thursday night’s conference matchup between the Pilots and No. 24 BYU pitted the Cougars high-powered offense against one of the top pitchers in the WCC — Portland’s Jordan Wilcox. That Cougar offense would prove to be too much for Wilcox and the Pilots as BYU cruised to an 8-2 win.
The loss dropped the Pilots to 13-13 on the year and 1-3 in WCC play while BYU improved to 21-3 and 5-2 in WCC play.
The Cougar’s offense, which leads the nation in runs per game at 9.5, got off to a hot start against the Pilot’s ace. BYU’s first batter sent Wilcox’s fourth pitch of the game over the right field wall for a home run and the Cougars scored two runs in the first.
The Cougar’s would stay hot with their bats for Wilcox’s entire outing.
BYU’s Keaton Kringlen hit a homerun in the second inning and Colton Shaver added two more runs for the Cougars with a ball that hit off the top of the left field wall in the third inning.
Wilcox pitched a scoreless fourth inning, but Shaver struck again in the fifth, hitting a two run homerun for the Cougars. They added another run in the inning and Wilcox’s outing was over.
“I got off to a rough start, my mentality wasn’t there from the beginning,” Wilcox said. “I made mistakes and they took full advantage of it, it was that simple.”
BYU pitcher Michael Rucker, who holds a 5-0 record on the year for the Cougars, silenced the Pilots’ bats for most of the night. He gave up one run on five hits in six innings of work. The lone run came when Pilots center fielder Caleb Whalen hit a homerun in the third inning.
Relief pitching was strong for the Pilots as Jake Hawken and Cole Doherty combined to give up only three hits and no runs over their combined four innings of work.
Head Coach Geoff Loomis said he was impressed with the outings of the two relievers.
“I think what they were able to do was pitch out of trouble,” Coach Loomis said. “Their ability to pitch out of trouble tonight was their key to success.”
The Pilots also struggled with the relief pitching of BYU. They scored their second and final run of the game on a sacrifice fly from Eric Sapp in the eighth inning.
Despite the loss on Thursday night the Pilots look to make improvements in their next two games against BYU this weekend.
“We’ve been struggling lately with quality at-bats, tonight was a step forward in that,” Loomis said. “We had a lot of quality at bats tonight so I’m hoping that’s a starting point for us to continue to have those at bats this weekend.”
The Pilots will face BYU again on Friday at 6 p.m. and Saturday at 11 a.m.
Hunter Jacobson is a sports reporter for The Beacon. He can be reached at jacobsoh19@up.edu and on Twitter @huntre23.
