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EDINBURG – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley baseball team, which is receiving votes in the latest National Collegiate Baseball Writers' Association (NCBWA) poll, fell to the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) 4-3 on Friday at UTRGV Baseball Stadium.
 
Senior UTRGV (4-2) starter Carter Johnson (0-1) went seven innings, striking out eight while allowing one run on six hits and one walk.
 
The lone run against Johnson came in the fourth on an Aaron Ackerman double.
 
UIC (4-1) added an unearned run in the top of the eighth on a Dylan Gilbert sacrifice fly and two more unearned runs on three errors and two hit batsmen in the ninth.
 
UIC starter Reid Birlingmair (1-0) pitched seven shutout innings, striking out six while allowing three hits and two walks.
 
UTRGV broke through in the eighth against reliever Charlie Cerny, scoring on a sacrifice fly by sophomore Mercedes alum Matthew Mendoza to bring UTRGV within 2-1.
 
UTRGV added two runs in the ninth against Alex Padilla on an error and a wild pitch. UTRGV put the tying run at third and the winning run at second before Padilla ended the game with a strikeout for his second save.
 
UTRGV and UIC play the middle game of this three-game series on Saturday at 2 p.m. Gates open at 1.

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