Knights head to AAC tournament

It’s championship time for the UCF baseball team as they enter the American Athletic Conference’s postseason tournament. But they’ll have to shake off losing four of their final six regular season games if they have hopes of collecting a trophy.

The Knights opened their regular-season-ending series on the road against USF with a bang, scoring four runs in the first inning of the first game before going on to win 12-9 in a wild slugfest that included USF fruitlessly rallying for five runs in the final inning. Erik Barber, Tommy Williams and Jordan Savinon all launched homeruns in the game. For Barber, who jacked two balls over the fence, he now has 11 on the season.

That wild first win, which saw Knights’ ace starter Zach Rodgers pick up his 10th win of the season on a six-strikeout, two-run start, didn’t translate into any momentum for the Knights, who let the Bulls put up a five-run inning in game two to take it 7-3.

Game three continued the Knights’ downward slide as they let the Bulls edge them 5-4 to take the series. Savinon’s homerun in that game wouldn’t be enough to propel a Knights’ comeback, and the team ended the regular season on a nail-biter loss in front of their closest rival’s fans.

The Knights entered the AAC championship tournament this week with a 31-25 overall and 10-14 conference record. That was good enough to seed them No. 7 of eight teams, putting them up against East Carolina in Clearwater Wednesday night at press time. That’s an unlucky draw for the Knights: the Pirates are the only team to sweep the Knights this season.

With a win they’ll face either Tulane or UConn on Thursday. Against those two teams, the Knights have traded blowout wins and losses six times this season. If they can win in the single-elimination games in the first two rounds, they’ll be headed to the championship game Sunday.

Regardless, next week, the NCAA regional tournament begins. The College World Series follows in June.