ORLANDO – All nine starters tallied hits and six different Knights drove in multiple runs en route to leading UCF baseball to a 17-2 non-conference victory over Central Michigan on Saturday evening at John Euliano Park.
The Black and Gold pitching staff also had a stellar night, as Dom Stagliano struck out a season-high seven batters over 7.0 impressive innings of work to help lead the Knights (23-13, 8-10 Big 12) to the win. The junior right-hander surrendered just two runs on five hits while tying a career-long of 7.0 innings to improve to 2-3 on the year. Freshman Tyler Kozera then came on and allowed just one hit over 2.0 strong innings of relief to help seal the victory for the Black and Gold. The appearance marked Kozera’s first of his collegiate career.
“We talked about momentum being as good as your next day’s starting pitcher, and Stagliano was electric for us. It was also really good to see Tyler Kozera come out and look like that in his first career outing,” head UCF coach Rich Wallace said. “Obviously, there were some differences in the tenacity of our at-bats tonight and we did a nice job of executing some things at the plate to kind of get us going. Overall, I was proud of the team and for how we played and for those big swings we had in this one.”
Of the nine position-player starters for UCF, seven tallied multiple hits. Lex Boedicker led the way by going 3-for-4 with two doubles, a home run, three runs scored, and two runs batted in, while Jack Zyska too had a three-hit night by going 3-for-5 with two RBIs and two runs scored. Mikey Kluska also homered for the Black on Gold in the ballgame and finished with a 2-for-5 outing with two runs scored and a game-high three runs batted in. AJ Nessler went 2-for-4 with a double, triple and two RBIs, while Matt Prevesk, Andrew Williamson, and Danny Neri all also had two hits apiece.
“We really emphasized today coming in and making the adjustments that we needed to make, and I thought that we executed and played our game,” senior shortstop Kluska said. “Our pitching was obviously exceptional as well. I thought that we did a nice job of sticking with our plans and were more aggressive with our swings especially early in the count.”
The Knights got off to a strong start with a trio of first inning runs to take an early 3-0 lead. After back-to-back one-out walks drawn by Andrew Brait and Boedicker, Zyska started the scoring with an RBI single to left to bring in Brait. Prevesk followed with an RBI single up the middle and Williamson capped the scoring in the frame with a two-out RBI single to left.
Central Michigan (13-26, 5-13 MAC) struck back with a pair of solo homers in the top of the third to pull within a run at 3-2. Jake Brill homered to left while Danny Wuestenfeld hit one out to the opposite field to right. But that is all the offense the Chippewas would get, as Stagliano and Kozera would go on to pitch well the rest of the contest.
UCF took advantage of a CMU error in the fourth en route to putting up a crooked number in the frame to extend its advantage to 8-2. After Braden Calise walked and Williamson reached on an error, Neri and Kluska followed with back-to-back RBI singles to make it 5-2. Brait later drove in a run via an RBI groundout and Boedicker followed with an RBI double. Following a pitching change, Zyska drove in his second run of the game with an RBI single to left.
The Black and Gold offense continued to keep things going with three more runs in the fifth to take an 11-2 lead. With two runners aboard and two out, Nessler pulled a two-run triple down the rightfield line. Brait added another run with an RBI single to give the Knights the large lead.
The Knights tacked on four more runs in the sixth and two more in the seventh to put the game away. Williamson had an RBI single in the sixth and Kluska belted out his first home run in a UCF uniform with a two-run shot to left. He marks the 11th different Knight to hit a round tripper on the season. In the seventh, Boedicker posted his third extra-base hit of the game with a solo home run to right-center and Anthony Calabro capped the scoring with a pinch-hit RBI groundout.
In all, UCF finished with 17 runs on 18 hits to finish just one run and one hit shy of season-highs in each category.
UCF and CMU will close the non-conference weekend series with the rubber match on Sunday. First pitch is set for noon ET, and it will air live on Big 12 Now on ESPN+. Following Sunday’s contest, the Knights will continue their homestand by hosting FGCU in midweek action on Tuesday and will return to Big 12 Conference play next weekend (April 26-28) when Cincinnati visits John Euliano Park.