BYU baseball held its first exhibition game of the fall season on Saturday against the Air Force Academy at Miller Field in Provo.
The game lasted 16 innings, in order to give the teams more time to play in a real- game scenario. The Cougars won 15-9.
The teams split the game up into two separate games of eight innings, as they switched their whole lineups after the eighth inning ended.
BYU hit a home run for the first time in the fall season in the third inning. Luke Andersen connected with the ball and it sailed past the wall in left field. Andersen gave the Cougars a two-run lead with his home run after allowing two Air Force two runs in the top of the first inning.
BYU responded with three runs in the bottom of the first and then the homer from Andersen to bring the score to 4-2.
Garrison Sumner started the game on the mound for the Cougars and would be the first of eight pitchers featured in the game. The team totaled 14 strikeouts on the day and Payton Gubler led the bunch with five strikeouts in his two innings of play.
After the bottom of the third BYU was not able to bring home any runners after leaving four on base in the next four innings. It wasn’t until the seventh inning that either team was able to score again as Air Force brought in three runners and took the lead by one 5-4. The Cougars were able to respond with two runs in the bottom of the eighth before the teams switched their lineups ending the first half of the game with a score of 6-5 for BYU.
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— BYU Baseball (@BYUBaseball) October 20, 2024
In the top of the ninth, the teams made their lineup switches and Ashton Johnson came in to pitch for the Cougars. BYU was able to have some high-scoring innings following their lineup switch.
In the next three innings, the Cougars would bring their total from six runs to 15, highlighted by a five-run inning in the bottom of the tenth. Matt Hansen led off the batting in the inning with a single followed by a double from Jackson Hollingshaus. These advanced runners to second and third base. They were batted in by doubles from Rockwell Lybbert and Tate Gambill, and then the inning would be called as Chipper Beck hit a single and brought in the fifth run with just two outs.
This inning was what the Cougars needed to put the game out of reach for the Air Force team. There were six innings left and Air Force was able to score three more runs in the 13th but never were able to fully close the gap.
BYU won 15-9 in their first exhibition game getting their fall season started. The next game they will play against San Diego State in California on Nov. 9.
This will be the first time the Cougars have traveled and will be the last of their exhibitions in the fall season. After that BYU will look forward to its spring season starting in early 2025.