Baseball Drops Auburn Regional Contest to Milwaukee, 13-6Baseball Drops Auburn Regional Contest to Milwaukee, 13-6

Baseball Drops Auburn Regional Contest to Milwaukee, 13-6

by James Warnick
Box Score

AUBURN, Ala. – The UCF baseball team battled back from a 9-0 deficit in the middle innings to make things interesting, but in the end Milwaukee managed to hold on to record a 13-6 victory to advance in the winner’s bracket at the NCAA Auburn Regional on Saturday night at Plainsman Park.

The second-seeded Knights (32-22) now drop into an elimination game against the top-seed and No. 4 national seed Auburn on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET/2 p.m. CT, while the Horizon League champion Panthers (27-31) advance on to Sunday night’s regional final.

“I thought Milwaukee played an unbelievable game offensively. We helped them a little bit off the free stuff, but they capitalized. They played extremely hard, Shaun’s (Wegner) doing a great job there. We’ve got to figure out a way to come back tomorrow,” head UCF coach Rich Wallace said.

After a scoreless top of the first inning, the Panthers were the first to get things going with a pair of runs in the bottom of the first inning to jump out to a 2-0 lead. Dylan O’Connell plated the first run with an RBI double, and Bradyn Horn added a sacrifice fly. With two on and Milwaukee threatening for more, John Hadley pulled a line drive down the line but UCF first baseman Landon Moran managed to make a leaping catch and fired a strike to second base for an inning-ending double play to help limit the damage.

Milwaukee added three more runs in the second on a pair of RBI doubles to make it 5-0. The Panthers then tacked on four more runs in the third to stretch the lead to 9-0. Three runs came home on bases-loaded walks.

John Smith III doubled in the fourth but was stranded on the base paths in the top of the frame. With UCF’s Evan Jones on the mound in relief, the redshirt junior looked strong in the bottom of the inning as he struck out a pair and retired the side in order to try to shift the momentum in the Blak and Gold’s favor.

Senior captain DeAmez Ross got the Knights on the scoreboard in the top of the fifth with a two-out RBI single to center field to bring in Stephen Chucka.

After the Panthers added a solo homer in the bottom of the fifth, UCF responded with a five-spot in the top of the sixth to cut the deficit to 10-6. Andrew Williamson continued his hot hitting for the weekend by smashing out his fourth home run of the Auburn Regional with a solo bomb to deep right field. The homer traveled 443 feet and marked his team-leading 16th of the year. After Zak Skinner was hit by a pitch, Moran drove him in with an RBI single. Jordan Lodise later followed with an RBI single of his own before Austin Jacobs plated another run with an RBI double to left. Ross then capped the scoring in the frame with an RBI groundout.

Jones continued to pitch well in relief for the Black and Gold by retiring the side in order again in the last of the sixth and the seventh, which included inning-ending strikeouts in both frames.

After a scoreless top of the eighth inning, Milwaukee then loaded the bases in the bottom of the inning and added a trio of insurance runs to extend its lead to 13-6.

The Knights then got a one-out walk from Williamson in the top of the ninth, but he was stranded on the base paths as Milwaukee’s Aiden Fishnick closed out the game for the Panthers.

Jones ended up going a career-long 4.1 innings of stellar relief to help keep UCF in the game. The hard-throwing redshirt junior right-hander allowed just two runs on one hit while tying a season-high in strikeouts with five. Freshman Zachary Malvasio also had a nice outing late in the game by recording the final two outs on the mound for the Black and Gold with a pair of strikeouts.

UCF starter Mateo Gray was tagged with the loss in the contest to fall to 5-2 while Milwaukee starter Aric Ehmke earned the win after allowing just three runs on four hits over 5.0 innings of work.

Offensively, Jacobs led the way by going 2-for-3 with a double, an RBI and a walk, while Ross drove in a team-high two runs. Williamson finished 1-for-4 with a home run. The home run marked the fourth the Auburn Regional for Williamson which is a new regional program record for UCF, as it bested DJ Hicks’ previous record of three that was set at the 2012 Coral Gables Regional. Three Panthers drove in three or more runs in the game with O’Connell leading the way by going 2-for-3 with two doubles and four RBIs.

The setback moved the Knights to 1-1 at the Auburn Regional, as UCF previously recorded a 9-3 victory over NC State in their Auburn Regional opener. The contest was finished on Saturday morning after play was suspended in the top of the eighth inning due to weather late Friday night.  

The appearance in the NCAA Auburn Regional marks UCF’s 14th regional appearance and the second in the last three years for the Knights. It also marks just the program’s second outside the state of Florida in program history

On Deck

The Knights now enter an elimination game on Sunday afternoon against the host and No. 4 national seed Auburn Tigers on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET/2 p.m. CT. The winner of that game will advance to the Auburn Regional final while the loser will have their 2026 campaign come to a close.