PROVO, Utah — BYU baseball couldn’t hold on against Santa Clara on Senior Day, falling 5-1 in Saturday’s home finale at Larry H. Miller Field.

"It just was one of those days," BYU head coach Mike Littlewood said. "It was tough to score runs, but I liked the way we came out and competed. This was a pretty good baseball game today. We didn't see the great Kolton Mahoney, we saw the okay Kolton Mahoney. As I look back, we walked their eight and nine hitters probably five, six, seven times during this series, and we did the same thing today. Those little things just really, really hurt us."

BYU falls to 19-30 overall and 9-15 in West Coast Conference play. Santa Clara is 24-27 overall, 14-10 in conference.

Jarrett Jarvis was the only Cougar to record an RBI. BYU finished with seven hits to Santa Clara’s 10. Kolton Mahoney picked up the loss and is now 5-6 on the season. Santa Clara pitcher Jacob Steffens got the win.

Mahoney walked back-to-back Santa Clara batters in the top of the second, giving Bronco Kert Woods the chance at an RBI when he made it to third following his single and an outfield error. Bret Lopez picked up BYU’s first hit of the game in the bottom of the inning, but BYU couldn’t capitalize and ended the inning down 2-0.

Woods continued to cause problems for the Cougars in the fourth frame, sending a runner home on a base hit. The next Santa Clara batter homered over the right field fence to bring Woods in, pushing the Broncos ahead 5-0.

Brock Whitney quickly got on base after getting hit with a pitch in the bottom of the inning. Jarvis singled up the middle off the pitcher’s leg, creating enough confusion to get to first and send Whitney home for BYU’s first run of the game.

A deep Kolton Caldwell catch against the right field wall and two strikeouts kept the Broncos from scoring in the sixth. Jarvis doubled to left center when the Cougars got up to bat, but BYU left the inning without a run.

Neither the Cougars nor the Broncos could score after the fourth inning, despite leaving runners on base in the fifth, sixth, eighth and ninth frames.

BYU heads north to Salt Lake City on Tuesday for the final game of the Deseret First Duel against Utah at 7 p.m. MDT. The Cougars then conclude their regular season with a three-game series at Portland starting Thursday.

PROVO, Utah – Finishing strong, winning the Deseret First Duel, and honoring seniors are goals for BYU baseball as it ends the home season this week.

On Tuesday, Utah (13-28) comes to Provo for a third meeting against BYU (18-27 and 8-13 in the West Coast Conference). That game will be televised live by KBYU-TV (channel 11 locally) at 6 p.m., with Cougar lefty Hayden Rogers (2-3, 2.98) starting against Ute righthander Bret Helton (2-4, 4.60). The Cougars have won the first two of four games against Utah in the battle for the Deseret First Duel baseball portion.  Then BYU readies for a three-game series against Santa Clara (22-25 and 12-9) in a return to league action.

"We may be mathematically out of the playoff race but we will still compete to the end of the season," BYU coach Mike Littlewood said.  "Our only focus now is to build for the future and get this program headed forward. Utah will always be a big game for us because it's Utah and there is a lot at stake when playing an in-state rival."

The Thursday and Saturday games will be televised live by BYUtv, while Friday's game will be streamed live by TheW.tv.  There will be a fireworks show after Friday's games. BYU's softball team will be playing at home Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the same time as the Cougar baseball games.

With six league baseball games remaining for BYU, a sweep would put BYU over the .500 mark. The Cougars are hopeful of the return of junior Dillon Robinson who leads the team with a .390 batting average, but missed the last two games due to a reinjured ankle.

"As a team we need to get over the disappointment of not making the tournament and focus on beating Santa Clara," Littlewood said. "We are looking forward to honoring our seniors on Saturday before the game.  They have had the unusual experience of a coaching change during their college careers and each one of them have handled the transition with class.  They made the transition to BYU easy for me and I will always appreciate this senior class for that."

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