Bronson Larsen hit a grand slam in game one of BYU baseball's three-game sweep of Pacific. (BYU Photo)
The BYU baseball team stayed hot this weekend by sweeping West Coast Conference foe Pacific in a three game series. With the sweep the Cougars improve to 7-2 in league play and have won seven of their last eight games.
BYU won the first game thanks to Cougar ace Maverik Buffo, who pitched a shutout against the Tigers improving his record to 4-3 and lowering his ERA from 5.95 to 4.91 on the season.
“Maverik was good today,” BYU head coach Mike Littlewood said. “He battled through the first three innings and once he found his groove he was pretty un-hittable. He did a good job setting the tone for the series.”
Buffo got help on the offensive side from senior Bronsen Larsen who hit a grand slam in the fifth inning to give BYU a 5-0 lead and the Cougars never looked back, winning 6-0.
In the second game starting pitcher Brady Corless followed Buffo's lead with a solid performance and held the Tigers to three hits and one run scored in his six innings pitched.
The offense also showed up in a major way and scored 12 runs highlighted by Kyle Dean's homer, his first of the season.
“Brady gave us another solid start tonight and our hitters took care of the rest,” Littlewood said. “We hit a lot of balls hard and had another night of great at-bats throughout the lineup.”
After the second win, Coach Littlewood encouraged the team to stay hungry and look for the series sweep.
The team responded by winning the third game 5-2 in spite of being out hit by the Tigers 8-6.
Yet again, the Cougars were led by a stellar performance on the mound, this time it was lefty Hayden Nielsen who held Pacific to one run in six innings.
The win was also made possible by four errors from Pacific, two of which came in the three run sixth inning.
Up next BYU will play Utah Valley University (11-19, 4-2 Western Athletic Conference) in Orem on Tuesday at 6:00 p.m.