Box Score Salt Lake City, UT—The UC Riverside Baseball Team found itself in an early 6-0 hole Thursday evening, and was unable to climb out of it, falling to the Utah Utes, 7-3.

Hazahel Quijada (2-5) made his seventh start of the season for the Highlanders (16-25), but logged just two-and-two-thirds innings, as the Utes scored one run in the second and five more in the third to take a 6-0 lead.

UC Riverside's relief corps took over at that point, and from the fourth inning on, Highlanders' pitchers allowed just two hits and one unearned run.

Josh Rose (6-2) kept UCR's offense off balance for six innings allowing just one hit during that stretch. The Highlanders finally got to him in the seventh though, stringing together four hits and a walk, and scoring three runs to cut the deficit to three. Yeager Taylor, Michael Farris and Cody Sporrer each picked up an RBI single in the frame.

Tanner Thomas recorded the final out of the seventh in relief of Rose, and didn't allow a hit the rest of the way. Rose finished the game with nine strikeouts, which made him the Utes' career leader in strikeouts with 241.

Utah (20-19) tacked on another run in the bottom of the seventh for the final 7-3, four-run margin of victory.

The Highlanders and Utes play game two of their three-game series on Friday beginning at 5 pm PT.