PRICE – Utah State Eastern baseball kicked off their 2018 season with a preseason tournament in Las Vegas on Friday and Saturday.

The Eagles came away from the tournament with a 1-3 record after taking on very competitive teams.

USU Eastern Head Coach Scott Madsen said that it was a good opportunity to see his team finally take the field this season and see where his players are at.

"There was some good and some bad, I felt like our hitters did well with working counts and it was great to see that," said Madsen.

Madsen's team opened the weekend with a 6-5 win over Arizona Western, the defending Region I champions.

Sophomore pitcher Jarod Lessar pitched five innings and allowed three earned runs with two strikeouts.

Being down 5-3 in the bottom of 8th inning, the Eagles were able to score three runs to take the lead.

Sophomore Khristian Sorensen closed out the 9th inning on the mound and got the win for USU Eastern.

The Eagles would lose the final three games of the weekend to Yavapai, Central Arizona and Gateway.

Madsen said that his pitchers struggled a little bit in their matchups against opposing pitchers in the final three games but believes they are better than what they showed.

"We were facing some good pitchers and our pitchers weren't comfortable. Our plan was to work ahead and get contact early but it seemed like they got behind in a lot of counts throughout the game," said Madsen.

With star outfielder Jesse Rowley not available in the lineup over the weekend, the Eagles got a boost at the plate from sophomore Jarrett Hunt.

"He really picked it up with the bat, we missed Jesse Rowley who was huge for us last year. Jarrett filled in nicely and had a lot of RBIs," said Lessar.

Hunt finished the tournament batting .500 with four RBIs, 5 hits, and three runs.

Madsen said that he was impressed with mid-year transfer Ryan Curtis who batted .333 with two RBIs and five runs in the three games he played in Las Vegas.

"He transferred here at the break and did really well for us batting leading off," said Madsen.

The Eagles will now have a week of preparation and weekend of intrasquad scrimmages this weekend before going back on the road next weekend.

Lessar said that he hopes that the pitching staff and him will take the time to improve so they can have a better weekend in their next tournament.

"We have to improve our pitching and our walks, we kind of struggled as a staff. We had 51 walks and 51 runs on the weekend, it kind of went hand in hand with our losses. We will really focus on starting on top and starting with first-pitch strikes, so we can hopefully get it together," said Lessar.

On February 15 they will travel to Henderson for the Coytote Slugout where they will take on two baseball teams from Canada.

 The Eagles will begin conference play on March 2 with a trip to Rangely to take on Colorado Northwest.

They will open their home schedule with a weekend series on March 16 against the College of Southern Nevada.