UCF baseball preview: Golden Knights travel to "The Box" to face Bayou Bengals

CUSA Fans UCF sports correspondent Ryan Westin provides us with a preview of the upcoming baseball series between UCF and LSU.

The Golden Knights leave the friendly confines of Jay Bergman Field for the first time this season, as they will travel to Baton Rouge, La. to take on the LSU Tigers in a three game series this weekend at Alex Box Stadium. UCF is headed into the series with a 3-5 mark while LSU is 4-2. LSU leads the all-time series 11-3. The two programs last met in Orlando in 2004, when LSU won the series 2-1.

Dwayne Bailey (batting) and the Golden Knights travel to one of college baseball's best atmospheres this weekend when they visit LSU's Alex Box Stadium.

LSU is returning home from playing Stetson University, which is about forty-minute drive from UCF and located Deland, Florida. The Hatters were able to take the series 2-1, winning the first two games of the series before the Tigers staved off the sweep on Sunday. The Tigers play a Wednesday night game against Northwestern St at home before hosting the Golden Knights this weekend.

UCF is coming off their second consecutive 1-2 series, as they were only able to pick up a victory on Sunday in the home series against TCU and Maryland the past two weekends. This past weekend, the strong bat of Kiko Vazquez led UCF. He was able to hit three home runs on the weekend and two in Saturday's game against the Terrapins, but it was not enough to take home the victory on Saturday as UCF lost the game 9-7.

When asked about the win over Maryland on Sunday, head coach Jay Bergman responded, "That's a typical baseball game for us, our last three guys came in and we got six strikeouts out of the bullpen and we got the hits when we needed them. That's what we are going to have to do to win ballgames. And the starting pitcher has to keep it close to give us a chance to win."

This had been proven to be true in UCF’s series against TCU, where they fell behind big very early in all three games against the Horned Frogs and were only able to tally up one win when by erasing a 6-run deficit in Sunday’s game.

This was seen again in this past weekend’s series against Maryland, as they fell behind the Terps, 8-0, on Friday and Saturday before plating their first run.

Key to the Series
UCF's starting pitchers must do a better job of keeping the Knights in the game this week if they want to be in the position to win a series against an opponent the caliber of LSU on the road. During Sunday’s game against the Terrapins, Jaegar Good kept UCF in it, as they trailed only

2-1 after his first five innings of work. In the bottom of the fifth inning, the Knights were able to put up three runs and with solid pitching were able to wrap up the victory.

Who's Next?
After returning from LSU, the Golden Knights will host the Michigan Wolverines on Wednesday, February 27. Next, they will host Monmouth University the next weekend. Those games will be part of a 17-game homestand. UCF will not play away from Jay Bergman Field again until it travels to former Atlantic Sun rival Stetson on March 27 th.