Baseball Comes Up Just Short Against Kansas in Game TwoBaseball Comes Up Just Short Against Kansas in Game Two

Baseball Comes Up Just Short Against Kansas in Game Two

by Nick Porcelli
Box Score

ORLANDO – In what was a high-scoring back-and-forth game, UCF would come up just short against No. 23 Kansas, falling 10-9 in game two of a three-game series.

Deadlocked at 8-8 in the eighth inning, catcher Dylan King delivered a clutch two-out go-ahead RBI double in the last of the eighth to give the Knights (18-12, 3-8 Big 12) a late 9-8 lead. But back answered the Jayhawks (26-6, 8-3 Big 12) with a pair of runs in the top of the ninth to secure the series.

“I thought Wiley (Hartley) was pretty good for us to start the game and we did a nice job with our two-out hitting. I’m proud of team for the effort tonight. It’s tough to bounce back from giving up a five-spot in the middle of the game, but it was nice to see the guys put their heads down and get right back to work,” head coach Rich Wallace said. “Overall, we played great defense, but they (Kansas) figured out how to get some hits and we couldn’t close out the game.”

The Knights would jump out to an early 1-0 lead off an RBI single from Lex Boedicker in the bottom of the first. UCF would increase its lead the next inning thanks to RBI singles from Antonio Jimenez and Edian Espinal and Jimenez later made it 4-0 by reaching home after an error on a pick-off attempt. The Black and Gold scored all of these runs with two outs.

Kansas would respond with a home run in the third, before scoring five runs in the fourth to take the lead. Derek Cerda, Brady Counsell and Sawyer Smith all homered for KU during the stretch. But it wouldn’t take long for UCF to respond. In the bottom of the fourth, Jimenez would hit his fifth home run of the season to cut the deficit to one. Jimenez absolutely smashed that one out of the park, as the ball was recorded at 107 MPH off the bat.

The Knights would tie it in the bottom of the fifth, as DeAmez Ross legged out a defensive miscue by the Jayhawks that brought in Chase Krewson.

With UCF reliever Dominic Castellano putting zeros on the board, Ross would give the Black and Gold the lead back in the bottom of the seventh with a picture-perfect RBI bunt single to the right side of the infield. Jimenez would do the same thing in the very next at-bat, driving in his third run of the day to give the Knights a two-run lead.

Kansas would tie it the next inning via solo home runs from Michael Brooke and Counsell. But King would respond for UCF with the two-out RBI double in the bottom of the eighth to bring home Boedicker and give the Knights a late 9-8 advantage.

In the top of the ninth, Kansas got back-to-back hits to put a pair of runners in scoring position with nobody out in the frame. Jackson Hauge then tied it up with an RBI groundout to the right side and Dariel Osoria later delivered a two-out RBI hit to give KU the late 10-9 lead.

In the bottom of the ninth, the Knights hoped for more late heroics but came up short as Kansas held on for the victory.

UCF’s offense would combine for 12 hits, with seven batters getting a hit and four recording multiple hits. Jimenez led the way, going 3-for-6 at the plate with a home run, three RBIs and two runs scored. Ross, Boedicker and Krewson also had multiple-hit outings for the Knights. Counsell paced KU by going 2-for-4 with two home runs, two runs scored and a game-high four runs batted in.

Castellano, who pitched 3.0 innings and only allowed just two hits and one run, tied a season-high in strikeouts on the night by punching out five of the 12 batters he faced.

Kansas reliever Eric Lin earned the win in the late innings to move to 2-2 on the year while Alex Galvan was tagged with the loss to drop to 0-1. KU’s Alex Breckheimer tossed a clean ninth to earn his second save of the season.

The Black and Gold will look to salvage a game on the weekend on Sunday, as game three is scheduled for 1 p.m. Following Sunday’s finale, the Knights play a midweek contest in Jacksonville against North Florida on Tuesday night before traveling to Manhattan, Kansas, to take on No. 22 Kansas State next weekend.