Regular Season Ends With Win

PROVO -- Michael Davies drove in Jeff Hiestand twice for the final two runs Saturday as BYU defeated UNLV, 4-2.

The Cougars, now 34-19 overall and 21-8 in the Mountain West Conference, learn an NCAA-bid opportunity to host on Monday afternoon. With the MWC regular season title locked up, Saturday's game with UNLV wasn't as tense as the score indicated.

"I was more calm today than last night," said BYU Coach Vance Law, whose team secured the title with an 11-1 victory Friday against UNLV. "I stressed to the team the need to stay under 20 losses."

Winning pitcher Jeff Stone and loser Cortney Hall did yeoman's work for their teams, each throwing over 100 pitches on a hot day that ended the regular season for both teams.

Hall could not escape a bases-loaded jam in the third as Davies scored BYU's first run off Shane Belliston's ground out. Belliston did his job, but saw his 25-game hitting streak end.

Also in the third, Matt Carson hit a sacrifice fly to also drive in Tyler Perry, one of six seniors who played their final game at Miller Park unless BYU receives the NCAA hosting opportunity. With Saturday's 1,318 crowd, BYU has drawn 17,378 fans in 13 dates at Larry H. Miller Field for an average of 1,337.

UNLV's David Trujillo did his part to start the Rebels off with a first inning single to extend his league-leading hitting streak to 27 games. But Trujillo struck out in the fourth and eighth innings when the Rebels ended up stranding two of their five base-runners.

Stone struck out Trujillo in the eighth with just a 3-2 lead and the count at three and one to end the inning.

"At 3-1 my next pitch was a fastball which got away and I thought he would hit it out of the park," said Stone, of Trujillo's swinging miss. "My next pitch was a fastball on the outside corner of the plate."

That called third strike ended the eighth inning, giving Stone six strikeouts on the day and paved the way for him to move into a fourth place tie for BYU career wins with his 26-10 record.

"That is the Jeff Stone of old and he competed really well," said Law. "He had good command.

"I told our team the majority of games are won when a team manufactures runs and we were disciplined enough to do that today."

As Stone finished the eighth, BYU's batters went to work with Hiestand driving a two-out double to the left field wall. Hall walked two consecutive batters to load the bases before leaving the game. The first of those walks was to senior Seth King, who drew four straight balls and kept innings alive with his three for-three outing. With Doug Thornton relieving Hall, Davies battled a 2-2 count and singled through the right side to score Hiestand.

Fellow lefty James Ray mopped up the final inning to earn his third save of the season.

UNLV fell to 22-31 and 13-17. BYU next plays on Wednesday against the Air Force Academy in the opening round of the MWC Tournament at San Diego, Calif.

Game notes: Game 3 of 3...BYU learns Monday if it will host an NCAA Regional the latter part of the last full week in May. Trujillo's hitting streak extends to 27 & Belliston's streak ends at 25...Stone is 26-10 in his BYU career, tying him in 4th place with Scott Nielsen and Jeff Dusek.

The Automated ScoreBook
                          UNLV at Brigham Young Univ.
               May 12, 2001 at Provo, Utah (Larry H.Miller Field)
UNLV 2 (22-31,13-17 MWC)
Player                    AB  R  H RBI BB SO PO  A LOB
------------------------------------------------------
SHITANISHI, Garett 2b....  3  0  1  0   1  0  0  1   0
JACOBITZ, Joe lf.........  4  0  1  0   0  0  5  0   0
TRUJILLO, David 1b.......  4  0  1  0   0  2  9  0   2
KITSCH, Trent dh.........  3  1  1  0   1  1  0  0   1
JOHNSON, Brent 3b........  4  1  2  1   0  0  1  1   1
BEASLEY, Brad c..........  3  0  0  1   0  0  4  3   0
HERTEL, Brad rf..........  4  0  0  0   0  1  0  0   1
CRUZ, John cf............  3  0  0  0   0  2  2  0   0
RUIZ, Ryan ss............  3  0  0  0   0  1  3  4   0
HALL, Cortney p..........  0  0  0  0   0  0  0  1   0
 THORNTON, Doug p........  0  0  0  0   0  0  0  0   0
Totals................... 31  2  6  2   2  7 24 10   5
Brigham Young Univ. 4 (34-19,21-8 MWC)
Player                    AB  R  H RBI BB SO PO  A LOB
------------------------------------------------------
JACKSON, Doug lf.........  2  0  0  0   1  0  1  0   0
 WHITLEY, Aaron lf.......  1  0  0  0   0  1  1  0   0
BELLISTON, Shane cf......  4  0  0  1   0  0  2  0   0
CARSON, Matt rf..........  3  0  1  1   0  0  2  0   0
OBREY, Kainoa 3b.........  3  0  1  0   1  2  0  3   1
HIESTAND, Jeff dh........  2  2  1  0   2  0  0  0   0
KING, Seth ss............  3  0  3  0   1  0  1  4   0
HAGUEWOOD, Ty 1b.........  2  0  0  0   1  0 10  0   1
 LAW, Tim 1b.............  0  0  0  0   1  0  1  0   0
DAVIES, Michael c........  3  1  2  2   0  0  7  0   2
PERRY, Tyler 2b..........  4  1  1  0   0  0  2  2   4
STONE, Jeff p............  0  0  0  0   0  0  0  2   0
 RAY, James p............  0  0  0  0   0  0  0  0   0
Totals................... 27  4  9  4   7  3 27 11   8
Score by Innings                    R  H  E
-------------------------------------------
UNLV................ 000 000 200 -  2  6  1
Brigham Young Univ.. 002 100 01X -  4  9  0
-------------------------------------------
E - HERTEL. DP - Rebels 2; Cougars 1. LOB - Rebels 5; Cougars 8. 2B -
JOHNSON; HIESTAND; PERRY. SF - BEASLEY; CARSON; DAVIES. CS - CARSON; OBREY.
UNLV                   IP  H  R ER BB SO AB BF
-----------------------------------------------
HALL, Cortney.......  7.2  8  4  4  7  3 25 34
THORNTON, Doug......  0.1  1  0  0  0  0  2  2
Brigham Young Univ.    IP  H  R ER BB SO AB BF
-----------------------------------------------
STONE, Jeff.........  8.0  5  2  2  2  6 27 30
RAY, James..........  1.0  1  0  0  0  1  4  4
Win - STONE (5-4).  Loss - HALL (7-7).  Save - RAY (3).
WP - HALL.
Umpires - Home:Blake Jensen  1st:Jeff Jenkins  3rd:John Cortez
Start: 1:00   Time: 2:16   Attendance: 1318
Game: BY53