By James Hernandez

The Coyotes hit the road for the first time in 2018 looking to avoid the dreaded 3-5 start that has seemingly plagued this club for the past few seasons. CSN opened play Friday afternoon versus the Gateway Community College Geckos in doubleheader action from Gene Autry Field.

Highly regarded freshman southpaw Nick Rupp got the start in game one, and delivered a rock-solid performance.

Rupp scattered four hits and struck out five Geckos over four shutout innings of work. Despite the solid afternoon of work by Nick, the Coyote offense was unable to plate a run until the top of the sixth inning and he did not factor in the decision.

With the team trailing 1-0 in the sixth, the Southern Nevada offense finally found a spark. Justin Lutes produced the Coyotes first RBI of the game on a single to center field that plated AJ Amelburu and Joey O'Brien, followed two batters later with a 2 RBI single to left field that plated Lutes and Wong to extend the teams lead to 3-1. Michael Camburn added an insurance run with a double to left field in the top of the seventh to make the score 4-1 in favor of CSN.

Buddy Pindel fired three innings of 1-run baseball to earn the victory. CSN dropped GCC 4-1 to improve to 3-2 on the season and 1-0 on the road.

West Virginia transfer Ryan McDonald took the ball for the second time in a Coyote uniform, and this time the team was ready to provide some early offense.

Before Ryan threw a single pitch he was staked to a six run lead thanks to some timely hitting by CSN.

Southern Nevada sent ten hitters to the dish in the top of the first and when the dust settled RBI's from Joey O'Brien, Wyatt Featherston, Herbie Good, Jay DeSoto and Roger Riley gave McDonald all the cushion he would need. For good measure Herbie Good deposited a tape-measure 3-run bomb to left in the second and ended the game with a career high 6 RBI's.

Ryan McDonald, Jordan Wyke and Tyce O'Neill combined to allow five hits over seven stellar innings of work. Southern Nevada pounded out a season-high fifteen hits on its way to a 15-1 domination of the Gecko's in game two of the double-dip.

The victory improved the Coyotes overall record to 4-2 and 2-0 away from home.

Future University of Houston Cougars commit Isaiah Blaylock took the ball in Saturday's opener versus the South Mountain Community College Cougars, looking for his first victory of the season.

Blaylock struggled to locate his pitches in the bottom of the first inning, throwing over forty pitches, ultimately surrendering four runs and five hits. Isaiah only lasted three innings, and despite the Southern Nevada pen (Tanner Lewis, Tyce O'Neill and Jordan Wyke) only allowing one run the remainder of the game the deficit was too much for the offense to overcome. The Coyote offense was only able to produce four hits over seven innings, ultimately falling victim to its second shutout loss of the season.

SMCC defeated CSN 5-0 to drop the Coyotes to 4-3 on the year and 2-1 on the road.

The final game of the weekend featured former Bishop Gorman and IMG Academy standout Matty Mitchell on the bump for the Coyotes as they looked to secure its first winning road trip to Phoenix of the Garritano era.

After being shutout 5-0 in the previous contest CSN was able to strike for a pair of runs in the top of the first inning.

An RBI groundout off the bat of the "Swiss Army Knife" Joey O'Brien and a hard hit ball to third off the bat of Herbie Good led to an error that gave the Coyotes an early 2-0 lead. Mitchell surrendered his only earned run of the game in the bottom of the first on a single back up the box. A questionable balk call on the southpaw in the bottom of the fifth allowed the Cougars to plate a runner from third and knot the game up 2-2.

Alex Tisminezky relieved Mitchell and tossed a clean sixth inning, but a scrappy Cougars team was able to scratch across a pair of runs in the bottom of the seventh to take its first lead of the ball game 4-2.

Jordan Macias led the top of the eighth inning off with a solo shot to deep left field to cut CSN's deficit to 4-3, unfortunately that was all the scoring the Coyotes could produce.

Southern Nevada dropped game two of the doubleheader to South Mountain 4-3, falling to 4-4 on the season and 2-2 away from the Den.

Fans your Coyotes will back home Friday, Saturday and Sunday to compete in the annual Coyote Classic. For upcoming opponents and game times log onto www.csncoyotes.com or follow us on Twitter @CSN_Baseball and Facebook CSNCoyotes.