Tampa, Fla. – The UCF baseball team (22-17, 4-7 AAC) fell to South Florida (17-23, 6-4 AAC) in the second game of the weekend series Saturday at the USF Baseball Stadium.
The Bulls jumped out to an early 5-0 lead in the first two innings and held on through the contest.
In the top of the second inning, a bloop single from Andrew Brait opened the hitting for the Knights. Drew Faurot knocked an RBI single to right field to score Brait and put UCF on the board and then scored on a passed ball.
Back-to-back home runs for South Florida in the third inning scored three and extended the Bulls' lead to 8-2.
Tom Josten blasted his 11th home run of the year, the Knights' 68th, to score two in the top of the fourth.
South Florida answered with an RBI double in the bottom of the inning to bring the score to 9-4.
Earlier in the game, Matt Cedarburg drew a walk to extend his reached-base streak to six games, in the seventh inning he extended his hit streak to five games. Ben McCabe followed with a double down the left line to score Cedarburg and make it a 4-run game once again.
The Bulls responded with five runs in the bottom of the seventh inning, all but securing the game.
The Knights put together three runs in the eighth inning. Romano singled to lead off the inning, Josten walked, and Brait was hit by a pitch for the second time this series to load the bases. Drew Faurot hit a sacrifice fly to right field. Plumlee singled to center field and Ben McCabe followed with his second RBI double of the day to score Plumlee. The three runs were not enough to rout the Bulls, bringing it to an 14-8 ballgame.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Cedarburg tallied his eighth putout in left field, a single-game high for a UCF outfielder this season. Two scoreless frames would end the contest with a final score of 14-8.
The Knights and Bulls will meet one more time Sunday at 1 p.m. for game three to play for the series. As the Bulls took two of the first three-game series, they lead UCF 3-2 in the season series, and the Knights look to tie it today with a win.