No. 21 Baseball Falls to Cincinnati, Rubber Match Set for Sunday AfternoonNo. 21 Baseball Falls to Cincinnati, Rubber Match Set for Sunday Afternoon

No. 21 Baseball Falls to Cincinnati, Rubber Match Set for Sunday Afternoon

by James Warnick
Box Score

ORLANDO – The No. 21 UCF baseball team homered three times but it wasn’t enough, as Cincinnati pulled out a 9-3 contest on Saturday evening at John Euliano Park.

The Knights dropped to 21-14 overall and remain in a tie for second place in the Big 12 standings with an 11-6 league record. The Bearcats improved to 26-15 overall and 7-10 in conference play with the win. The third and decisive game of the series will come on Sunday at noon.

“As good as we played yesterday on the pitching and defensive side, today was probably the opposite,” head UCF coach Rich Wallace said. “It had the making of a really good college baseball game, and then the five-run eighth happened. We gave up two big innings and that was the difference of it.”

With Cincinnati up a run in the first inning, the Knights responded thanks to a deep solo home run to right field off the bat of Andrew Williamson to deadlock the score at 1-1. The home run marked Williamson’s team-leading 10th of the season and traveled 418 feet. It also marked his eighth career first-inning round tripper.

Both starting pitchers settled down over the next couple of innings, as it remained 1-1 into the fourth. The Bearcats then put up three runs in the top of the fourth inning thanks to a two-out three-run home run from Conlan Daniel to take a 4-1 lead.

The Black and Gold made it 4-2 in the sixth inning when John Smith III blasted out a solo home run to the opposite field to cut the deficit in half. Smith III’s homer marked his sixth of the season and traveled 354 feet.

After freshman reliever Max Murray struck out the side in the seventh inning, UC responded in the eighth with five runs to take a commanding 9-2 advantage. Jackson Smith, Derrick Pitts, Jack Natilli, Enzo Infelise and Christian Mitchelle all had RBIs for the Bearcats in the frame.

After a scoreless bottom of the eighth, UCF got a two-out solo home run from pinch hitter JD Rogers to make it 9-3. But it was too late, as Cincinnati held on to even the series.

UC starter Logan Knight earned the victory after allowing just two runs on five hits over 6.0 innings to move to 4-3 on the year. Cincinnati’s Adam Brouwer was also credited with his first save of the season. UCF starter Matt Sauser was tagged with the loss to drop to 2-3. In all, the Knights used a total of eight pitchers on the night.

Offensively, Williamson, Smith III and Rogers led the way with a solo home run apiece. Daniel paced the Bearcats by going 2-for-3 with three RBIs, two runs scored and a pair of walks.   

On Deck

The rubber match of the series is set for Sunday. First pitch for the contest will be at noon, and the game will air live on ESPN+. Following Sunday’s contest, UCF will head to Daytona Beach for a midweek contest at Bethune-Cookman on Tuesday, April 21 at 6 p.m. The Black and Gold will then head to Utah for a three-game league series against the Utes next weekend in Salt Lake City.