OREM, Utah – Utah Valley senior Goose Kallunki hit a walk-off double in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Wolverines a wild 7-6 victory over North Dakota in the Great West Conference opener for both schools Thursday at Brent Brown Ballpark. It was the first extra-inning game of the season for the Sioux, who have dropped seven straight with three of those losses coming by a single run.

Sioux freshman Sam Alt (Lino Lakes, Minn.) homered and had a career-high three hits in the setback, but his efforts were overshadowed by Kallunki’s four-hit affair as Utah Valley (14-11, 1-0 GWC) defeated UND (2-17, 0-1 GWC) in dramatic fashion.

 

Alt tied the game at 2-2 with a two-run homer in the seventh and started a four-run, ninth-inning rally for the Sioux with a RBI single. 

The Wolverines had broken a 2-2 tie in the eighth inning with a pair of unearned runs before the visitors claimed their first lead of the game with that offensive eruption in the ninth.

Now trailing 6-4, Utah Valley added two more unearned runs to tie it in the ninth. Leadoff hitter Jake Rickenbach delivered a game-tying, two-run homer on a full-count pitch from freshman Andrew Thome (St. Cloud, Minn.) after just the second error of the game by the UND defense. 

The right-hander was vying for his second straight complete game, but was replaced by Brock Johnson (Detroit Lakes, Minn.) after surrendering Rickenbach’s third home run of the season. 

“It’s tough to lose one like that,” UND head coach Jeff Dodson said. “Thome threw tremendous again for us and really deserved to win, but we just could not pitch around Kallunki all night and he kept coming up with big hits. 

“Sam had a huge game for us and it was nice to see us come through with some clutch hits, but we have to forget about this one as tough as that may be and come out and try to win a couple tomorrow.”

Johnson was able to push the game to extra innings by getting a ground out to end regulation play. Right-hander Ryan Chadwick was the sixth UVU hurler in the contest as he retired the Sioux in order in the 10th before Kallunki provided the walk-off heroics with a one-out double to center. Chadwick picked up his first win of the season, while Johnson (1-1) suffered his first defeat.

UND turned a double play in each of the first four innings as Thome allowed only one run through the first five innings. UVU added a solo home run in the sixth off the bat of Billy Burgess to go ahead 2-0.

Alt picked a good time for his first career long ball, blasting a two-run shot in the seventh to square the game at 2-2. Alt’s shot to left field scored catcher Zack Trygstad (Wayzata, Minn.), who had singled to lead off the frame.

Tygstad had two hits and two runs in the contest. Freshman Jeff Campbell (Clearwater, Fla.) also had two hits, including a RBI single in the ninth-run rally. His RBI came after the go-ahead run scored on UVU's only error of the game.

Thome went 8.2 innings as only two of the six runs he allowed were earned. He struck out three and only walked one. 

The teams will resume the four-game series on Friday with a doubleheader. Game one is scheduled for seven innings, while game two is slated for nine innings.

– UND –