ORLANDO - UCF baseball found itself on the wrong end of an 8-2 contest to Cincinnati in the series finale on Sunday afternoon in John Euliano Park.
The Bearcats took two of three on the weekend to improve to 25-19 overall and 11-10 Big 12 play. The Knights drop to 26-15 overall and 9-12 in league play with the setback.
“We gotta pitch, defend and be timely on offense to close this season on a high note,” said head coach Rich Wallace. “We defended at a high level and we pitched well in spots at a high level. We just did not have timely hits. I have no doubt that the team will respond on the road on Tuesday.”
Lex Boedicker belted out a two-run home run to put the Black and Gold on the scoreboard in the bottom of the third. UCF threatened multiple times throughout the afternoon, but ultimately were unable to bring any more runs home. AJ Nessler went 1-for-2 on the day at the plate, while Andrew Williamson, Andrew Sundean, Braden Calise, Dylan King, and Matt Cedarburg all collected hits in the contest.
Kris Sosnowski, Najer Victor and Kyle Kramer led the pitching staff with each throwing scoreless innings of relief. Sosnowski picked off a runner in the top of the third on second base and retired the third batter. In the three innings he pitched, Sosnowski only allowed two hits and retired the rest of the10 batters he faced. Victor took the mound in the top of the sixth and quickly retired three batters in order. Kramer threw 2.1 innings with only two hits allowed. The Knight pitching staff tallied a total of eight strikeouts in the contest.
The Bearcats had a quick start to the contest with three runs scored in the top of the first inning. They earned another run in the second inning to take a 4-0 lead.
Sosnowski took the mound at the top of the third and did not allow a runner to make it to second. Andrew Brait tagged out a runner attempting to steal and picked off another runner before Sosnowski retired the batter to close the third inning.
Boedicker drove in the only runs for the Knights in the bottom of the third with a home run that sent himself and Brait around the bases for his sixth round-tripper of the season.
BOOM💣@LBoedicker sends it out of the park!
— UCF Baseball (@UCF_Baseball) April 28, 2024
UC 4, UCF 2 | B3 pic.twitter.com/0sxO19qJbe
At the top of the fourth, Sosnowski allowed one hit from UC but retired the rest of the batters he faced in the frame. Sundean threatened the Bearcats with a single before advancing to second with another hit from Calise and moved to third on a lineout to the right side. Starting pitcher for the Bearcats Tommy Boba managed to escape the jam, however, with an inning-ending groundout.
Anthony Calabro entered the game in the bottom of the fifth and once again threatened Cincinnati on third base after a walk, advancement from a sacrifice bunt and moved to third on a wild pitch. UC’s Chase Horst stranded Calabro at third by drawing a pop out. At the top of the sixth, Victory quickly retired the side in order.
In the top of the seventh, Kramer entered the game with Bearcat Tommy O’Connor on first base after a walk. UC’s Josh Kross singled, but UCF cut down O’Connor on the base paths and Kramer followed with back-to-back pop outs to strand a couple of runners.
The bottom of the seventh, King hit a single to advance to first. The Knights ended the bottom of the seventh inning with two runners left on base with a walk from Brait. In the eighth, Kramer allowed a hit from UC’s designated hitter Christain Mitchelle before closing out the inning.
Holding to a 4-2 lead, the Bearcats put the game away by scoring four runs in the top of the ninth. O’Connor and Kross both singled and were driven home with hits from Luke Sefcik and Josh Hegemann. Sefcik and Hegemann both scored on a double from Lauden Brooks before freshman pitcher Tyler Kozera struck out Mitchelle to send it to the last of the ninth.
Cedarburg entered for Kluska at the bottom of the ninth and singled down the third base line. Williamson followed with a single of his own to advance Cedarburg to second. With the Knights threatening with a pair of runners on base, Griffin Hugus retired consecutive hitters to close out the victory for UC.
UC's Horst earned the win in relief to move to 3-0 on the season while Hugus recorded his second save. UCF's Cade Boxrucker was tagged with the loss to drop to 3-2 on the year.
Despite dropping this weekend’s series, the Knights still lead the all-time series 20-15 over Cincinnati.
Sunday’s contest concluded an eight-game homestand for the Black and Gold.
UCF will next hit the road for a Tuesday midweek at North Florida before heading to the Lone Star State to face the Houston Cougars next weekend.