Survive and advance. That's exactly what Utah Tech did late Thursday night as the Trailblazers staved off elimination at the 2023 University Credit Union WAC Softball Tournament with a 6-4 victory over UT Arlington at the GCU Softball Stadium. 
 
The top-seeded Trailblazers (35-17) will move on to play in the first of possible two elimination games on Friday afternoon against No. 3 seed Stephen F. Austin at 4 p.m. (PT). 
 
The winner of that game will then advance on to play the loser of the No. 2 Grand Canyon/No. 4 Seattle U semifinal game at 7 p.m. (PT), for the right to play in the WAC Tournament championship game on Saturday.  
 
After getting shutout for just the second time this season in Thursday afternoon's 3-0 quarterfinal loss to Seattle U, Utah Tech scored single runs in three of its first four offensive frames to jump out to an early 3-0 lead.
 
Trailblazer lead-off hitter Tanya Windle doubled to start the game and quickly took third on a Hannah Hughbanks ground out.
 
Newly crowned WAC player of the year Shea Clements then stepped up and crushed the first pitch she saw from UTA starter Jessica Adams deep to left field. 
 
However Maverick outfield Reagan Hukill robbed the senior of her seventh home run as she reached over the wall to make the catch. Hukill then fired the ball quickly back into the infield to keep Windle from scoring.
 
Windle would eventually score the game's first run one pitch later when Lauren Almeida beat out an infield single. 
 
Utah Tech would use head's up base running in the second when LB Kahahawai-Kekona stole home on the back end of a double steal, and the freshman crossed the plate again two innings later on a two-out Hughbanks double to make a three-run game.
 
Meanwhile freshman pitcher Sauren Garton (W, 13-5) kept UTA off the scoreboard through her first three innings inside the circle, though it was not easy. Garton managed to escape a bases-load jam in the home first, then worked around two base runners in the second, before getting through the third having stranded six total Mavericks on the base paths.
 
UT Arlington (22-30) broke through with its first run in the home fourth on the second of back-to-back Maverick lead-off doubles. UTA later threatened with two runners on and one out, but Garton again escaped further damage by retiring the next two Mavericks to move the game to the fifth inning. 
 
Garton's battery mate would pick up the freshman in the fifth when after Lauren Almeida reached on a lead-off single, Blazer catcher Rachel Campbell ambushed a 2-0 Adams pitch and sent it well over the centerfield wall for her team-leading eighth homer of the season to stretch the Blazer lead to 5-1.
 
UTA clawed back with two runs in the sixth to trim the Utah Tech lead to 5-3, but Clements got one of those runs back with an opposite-field homer to right field to lead-off the Utah Tech seventh. For Clements it was her seventh long ball of the season and one that the Mavericks had no shot of bringing back. 
 
UT Arlington mounted one final charge in the home seventh when with two on and two outs, Hukill doubled in a run to cut the Blazer lead to two runs. However Garton would win a seven-pitch battle with Marley Neises with a ground out to Almeida at shortstop to end the game.
 
Utah Tech rapped out 12 hits in the game, with eight of the starting nine in the Blazer line-up collecting at least one hit. Kahahawai-Kekona finished with two doubles and two runs scored, while Windle, Almeida and Campbell each tallied two hits apiece.
 
Garton went the distance to earn her 13^th win of the season, and earn it she did as the freshman wound up throwing a career and UT staff season high 157 pitches. Garton struck out three and scattered four runs and 13 hits in the complete game win. Garton's previous season high pitch count was 137, which she threw in 9.1 innings in an extra-inning loss to, coincidentally, UT Arlington this past March 31 (L, 3-4).