- March 28, 2024
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A wild bottom of the ninth comeback win helped the Knights take their three game series over Houston last weekend, vaulting them to near the top of the American Athletic Conference baseball standings.
Then in the next game after the series the Knights hit three homeruns and managed to lose.
Against Houston in that three-game series, the Knights found some late heroism to pull off a pair of wins.
Tommy Williams raised his batting average to .393 on the season after cranking out a pair of singles and an RBI to help lead the Knights to their 4-3 win Sunday to take the series in a dramatic bottom of the ninth comeback.
Down a run with only a frame to go, the Knights were looking for some magic when second baseman Kyle Marsh smacked a single to right center field to start off the inning. When Erik Barber was hit by the first pitch to come his way, the Knights had two men on and the looks of a rally with the winning run just three bases away. When designated hitter Matt Diorio pulled a surprise move and bunted, chaos ensued. Marsh scored, and Diorio ended up on second base after a throwing error to first. A dangerous Williams was intentionally walked to load up the bases, just as it all went wrong for the Cougars. James Vasquez blasted his third hit of the day, Barber crossed the plate and the Knights had their walk-off win.
The victory came after one of the most unusual pitching performances of the season for a Knight, as Eric Hepple was yanked just an inning after giving up two runs, then Zach Rodgers came in to pitch eight innings of nearly scoreless relief. Rodgers would strike out five batters and throw 102 pitches in from the bullpen to earn his fourth victory of the season.
Coming from the other bullpen, the Cougars’ fifth pitcher of the night would earn the unlucky loss, with Seth Romero coming in as a shutdown man but instead finding himself at center stage for a pitching implosion for the ages. He would give up two hits, a walk, a hit batsman, and the tying and winning runs of the game, all while retiring only one batter.
Then their next game, the Knights’ big bats caught fire just as their pitching disintegrated against Florida Atlantic on UCF’s home diamond.
Three UCF homeruns wouldn’t be enough to propel the Knights to a win. Dylan Moore launched one out of left field in the first UCF at bat of the game. They wouldn’t tattoo another ball until the seventh inning, when Jordan Savinon took Florida Atlantic pitcher Weston Clemente’s first pitch of the game and sent it into the right field parking lot. That would open up the Knights’ biggest scoring inning, and end in their last runs of the game. Three batters later in the same inning Kyle Marsh blasted a two-run shot over the left field fence to score JoMarcos Woods.
But by then it was already too late for the Knights, whose seven pitchers in the game would give up a collective 11 runs, nine of them earned, walking nine, striking out 10 and allowing 15 hits, including a pair of triples.
The Knights are now at 22-8 overall on the season and 2-1 in the AAC, giving them the best overall record of any team in the conference, and landing them just behind USF in the conference record standings.
They’ll now face off with Cincinnati for a three-game road trip starting at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 2, then 6 p.m. Friday and noon Saturday. The Bearcats (6-20, 0-3) are currently the conference bottom-dwellers, the only team to be swept in their opening series.
Rollins baseball
The Tars fell to 15-18 overall and 2-10 in the conference after being swept by Saint Leo in three games. Trouble scoring more than a run hampered the Tars in two of three games.
They play Florida Southern (12-15, 2-7) on a three-game road trip coming up April 2 and 3 in Lakeland.