FRESNO, Calif.- Mike McRae hit his fifth home run of the season and freshman hurler Given Kutz pitched a complete game as the Portland Pilot baseball team crushed Chicago State, 11-2 at the Pepsi/Johnny Quik Classic Thursday afternoon. It is the third win for Portland (3-11) in the last four outings and the Pilots have put themselves in position to play for the tournament title on Saturday if they can defeat Brigham Young tomorrow.

McRae’s first inning two-run homer to left field followed a Travis Vetters sacrifice fly, spotting Kutz a 3-0 lead early. The Cougars cut the lead to 3-1 in the second on an RBI single by Brian Grippo, but Kutz got an inning-ending double play groundout to squelch the rally.

The Pilots doubled their run total in the sixth as Rhett Parker hit a two-run triple to the right-center gap, scoring McRae and Jeffrey Crinklaw. Billy Krause then singled home Parker to make it 6-1. McRae drove in his third run of the game in the following inning, bringing home Nik Kosach with a sacrifice fly.

After Chicago State (0-12) scored one in the top of the eighth, Portland crossed four more runs in the bottom half of the inning for the 11-2 final. The first five batters of the inning reached base for the Pilots before CSU put out the fire.

Kutz (1-0), pitching on just two day’s rest after starting against Monmouth on Tuesday, was impressive in recording the second Pilot complete game in as many days. The Mount Vernon, Wash. native gave up nine hits while striking out five and not walking a single Cougar batter. Nick Benish (0-1) took the loss for CSU, pitching 5.0 innings and allowing six runs on eight Pilot hits.

Portland scored their 11 runs on 13 hits and committed two errors, while Chicago State had nine hits and also two errors.

McRae finished 1-for-3 with a pair of runs scored and three RBI to lead Portland. Krause had three hits, while Parker was 2-for-4 with a triple, two runs and two RBI. Gustaf Little and Crinklaw also had two base hits for the Pilots.

Portland takes on BYU tomorrow at 10:00 a.m., and hope to compete for the tournament title on Saturday afternoon. Sophomore right-hander Trent Kristjanson (0-2) will take the mound for the Pilots against the Cougars.

NOTES: Nik Kosach made his first start behind the plate and threw out 2-of-4 runners attempting to steal... after the first 10 games, Portland was batting just .218 as a team, they are now up to .264 and five players are now hitting better than .300 (Little, Kosach, Vetters, Parker and Krause)... Rhett Parker extended his hitting streak to five games, while Crinklaw now has a four-game hit streak going... McRae’s five homers have come in the last seven games.