ORLANDO — Houston scored three runs in the seventh inning to claim Sunday’s finale by a score of 7-4 to take the weekend Big 12 baseball series, 2-1, over UCF at John Euliano Park.
The Knights dropped to 17-6 overall and 3-3 in Big 12 play with the setback, while the Cougars moved to 13-10 and 2-4 in league play with the victory. The series loss marked the Black and Gold’s first of the season, as they had won all five previous series coming into the weekend.
“Early we had a lot of opportunities to cash in, but we left too many men on base. That’s a completely different game if we would have converted some of those early chances,” head UCF coach Rich Wallace said. “That wasn’t Dom Stagliano’s greatest start, but he certainly pitched well enough to keep us in the game. There were some opportunities there, obviously offensively, and we just couldn’t make a couple of plays there in that seventh inning.”
The Black and Gold came from behind twice to tie the game with two runs in the third and two more in the sixth, but left the go-ahead run on third with one out in the sixth and Houston would load the bases with on one out and score three runs in the seventh inning to win the rubber game of the series.
Andrew Williamson led UCF at the plate by going 2-for-5 with a double, an RBI and a run scored. DeAmez Ross and Kendrey Maduro also drove in runs.
Despite suffering the setback, the Knights have still won 11 of their last 14 ballgames.
UCF had jumped out to a 5-0 lead after three innings in the opener on Friday, but the guests got a run back in the fourth and then plated six run in the fifth inning to pull out a 7-5 victory. The Knights loaded the bases with one out in the ninth, but left the runners stranded as the next two batters struck out.
Antonio Jimenez led the Black and Gold offensively by going 2-for-4 with a triple, an RBI and a run scored, while Ross and Edian Espinal each had two hits and scored a run apiece.
On Saturday, four UCF pitchers combined to limit Houston to just one run and the offense put the game away with five runs in the eighth inning to even the series with a 7-1 victory.
Holding to a 2-1 lead for the majority of the contest, the Knights’ offense exploded in the bottom of the eighth. Dylan King drove in the first run of the inning via a groundout and Ross followed with a two-out two-run single to make it 5-1. Espinal added some insurance with a two-run double to extend the Black and Gold’s lead to 7-1.
Espinal led UCF at the plate by going 2-for-5 with a double and two runs batted in, while Lex Boedicker went 2-for-3 with two runs scored. Both Ross and Jimenez drove in two runs for the Knights in the contest.
Up Next:
The Black and Gold opened a four-game road trip at in-state foe Jacksonville on Tuesday. UCF will then return to league play with a three-game set at Cincinnati on Friday (6 p.m.), Saturday (3 p.m.) and Sunday (1 p.m.) at UC Baseball Stadium. The games will be streamed on ESPN+, while live audio will be available by visiting UCFKnights.com, FM 96.9 The Game (Friday and Sunday) and 810 AM (Saturday) on the radio and live stats can also be followed at ucf.statbroadcast.com.
