ORLANDO – The UCF Baseball team completed a two-game midweek sweep of the No. 21 Florida State Seminoles with a 6-3 win on Wednesday at John Euliano Park.
Left-hander Jacob Marlowe opened the game on the mound for the Knights, looking to bounce back from his previous start. The first pitch across retired the first batter for the Seminoles, and Marlowe closed the top half of the inning in only eight pitches.
Knights were the first to strike for the second game in a row. Andrew Brait hit a first-pitch leadoff single and stole second base to put himself in scoring position with one away as Tom Josten struck out. Ben McCabe doubled to right to bring Brait home, giving UCF the early 1-0 lead.
UCF batted around the order during their five-run, seven-hit bottom of the fourth. With runners on first and second, Josten singled to left center, scoring Drew Faurot from second. McCabe was up next, and he singled to third to load the bases. Andrew Sundean was next batter up and singled to right on the first pitch he saw, clearing the bases to give the Knights to a 5-0 lead on the Seminoles. This brought Sundean's RBI tally to seven in the two-game series. After a pitching change, Lex Boedicker singled to put runners on the corners and Nick Romano added an RBI single to score Sundean.
FSU added their first runs of the game in the fifth. With on runner on second, Treyton Rank singled, and Nander De Sedas scored on an error on the play for Florida State's first run of the game. James Tibbs III singled to score Rank, making the score 6-2 UCF.
Marlowe had a career game on a big stage, setting career highs in both innings pitched with seven and strikeouts with five. He held Florida State's powerful offense to eight hits, allowing just one earned run and surrendering one walk.
In the top of the eighth, Tibbs III homered for the Seminoles to tally the final run of the series.
Kyle Kramer entered the game in relief to get the final three outs for the Knights. He sat FSU down 1-2-3 in the top of the ninth and UCF finished its midweek sweep of the Seminoles by a score of 6-3.
The Knights will host Dartmouth for a weekend series to wrap up their 12-game homestand starting 6 p.m. Friday at John Euliano Park.
