LAS VEGAS, Neveda - The Arizona Western baseball team returned from Las Vegas over the weekend, sweeping four games on the road, played at neutral sites. The Matadors began the trip on Friday, January 30th, squaring off with the defending NJCAA DI national champions, the Bruins of Salt Lake Community College. The Matadors played two games on Saturday, the early game versus New Mexico Junior College followed by the late game versus Utah State Eastern. On Sunday, the Matadors had a short turnaround and once again, faced Utah State Eastern.

FRIDAY - ARIZONA WESTERN 15, SALT LAKE CC 11 

The Matadors scored in six of the eight innings they took the batter's box. Led 10-5 after six innings of play and traded blows with the defending champs down the stretch to hang on for the win. Mattia Bernardis worked four innings of relief to earn the win. Gerardo Castro finished 205 with a double and homerun while driving in 5 RBI. Parker Husu, Ten Shindo and Alessandro Laise each drove in two runs for the Matadors. 

SATURDAY (GAME 1) - ARIZONA WESTERN 11, NEW MEXICO JUNIOR COLLEGE 5

The Matadors scored seven runs in the second inning, added two more in the third and took the air out of NMJC's sail early. Thijs Helms tossed six innings and struck out seven to earn his first win of the season. Ten Shindo and Trace Garrison each finished 3-4 and each drove in three runs. Gerardo Castro hit his third homerun of the season and added 2 RBI. Parker Husu also drove in two runs for the Matadors in the win.

SATURDAY (GAME 2) - ARIZONA WESTERN 8, UTAH STATE EASTERN 6

In a back-and-forth battle, Arizona Western notched four runs in the bottom of the fourth inning to take a 4-1 lead. The Matadors surrendered two runs in the fourth inning and two more in the seventh, finding themselves down 5-4 heading into the home half of the seventh. The Matadors retaliated for two runs in each of the seventh and eighth innings and held off a Utah State Eastern rally in the ninth. Filippo Baldassarri threw three innings in relief to earn the win, his second of the season. Filip Kollmann closed the game out for his second save of the season. At the plate, Ten Shindo finished 2-5 with a double, a run scored and knocked in a run. Parker Husu finished with 2 RBI and two walks. 

SUNDAY - ARIZONA WESTERN 18, UTAH STATE EASTERN 10

The Matadors broke a 4-4 tie in the fourth inning, exploding for five runs in the bottom of the fourth. USE countered with four in the fifth and two more to lead off the sixth to retake the lead at 10-9. Arizona Western responded with seven runs in the home half of the sixth and added two insurance runs in the eighth for the victory. Joris Meinsma worked 4.2 innings in relief to nab the victory. Brayden Hibler finished 2-4 with 4 RBI. Elias Huber drove in three runs. Gerardo Castro and Jamie Beerman each drove in two runs in the victory. 

UP NEXT

The Matadors head back to Walt Kammann Field riding a five-game win streak. Despite the early success, first year head coach Jon Wente says there is still a lot to clean up.

"Winning is hard, to win four games against the competition we faced is a good thing," Wente said. "Hopefully we can continue the momentum and still get better. We made some mistakes; we talked about it as a team. We won but we're still not playing to what I feel is our full potential and that's fine. You don't really want to be playing your best at the beginning of the year. We're finding ways to win, and it's been nice because we have different guys doing different things."

Arizona Western scored 52 runs in the four games played in southern Nevada while allowing 32. While coach Wente likes the offensive showing, he says the pitching needs some work. 

"We need to clean up on the pitching side," Wente said. "We need to clean up some defensive stuff. All are fixable so, that's the exciting thing is they are fixable mistakes. To go 4-0 against the teams we played, we're pretty proud of the guys."

Wente says there are a lot of positives to take away from his Matadors performances. 

"I felt our lineup was balanced," Wente said. "All weekend the bottom of the lineup continued to turn over. We didn't rely on our three- and four-hole hitters to do everything. We got contributions from different guys. We're a freshman orientated team; we played pretty much everyone this weekend and got something from everyone."

Wente shares some of the players who made an early impression on him. 

"I thought Jared Burgueno, a young man from San Luis, who was just put on the roster, to give us 3.1 innings on a Sunday when the pitching staff is pretty depleted, I thought that was a big boost," Wente said. "Gerry Castro had two homers, Parker Husu, the leader and heart and soul of our club, set the tone, was on base a ton. We got some big hits from Ten Shindo, some big hits from Brayden Hibler, Elias Huber started to figure out some things offensively, later on during the weekend. We still have plenty to get better at."

The Matadors will be back in action this Friday to begin a four-game series with Community Christian College. Games time are set for noon and 3:00 pm MST on Friday and Saturday. Games will be livestreamed on the Matador Sports Stream.

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