UCF baseball update: Southern Miss rebounds to take series 2-1 @ UCF

CUSA Fans UCF sports correspondent Ryan Westin provides us with an update on the 2007 UCF baseball team.

ORLANDO — UCF this weekend was able to get their first conference win of the season in the series opener against Southern Miss. However, Southern Miss came back to win the next two games and take the series in Orlando. The Knights are now 17-19 overall and 1-8 in Conference USA.

Friday - UCF 5 - USM 4

UCF starter Jaager Good and Southern Miss starter Ryan Belanger engaged in a pitching duel in this one. Both squads were held scoreless through the seventh inning. When Good and Belanger were replaced, the teams began to get things going offensively. Southern Miss was the first to get on the board when Blount singled to center and knocked in Trey Sutton in the top of the eighth.

Dwayne Bailey runs for home as the ball get thrown past third baseman James Ewing. Southern Miss missed the tag on Bailey at home but it was ruled he stepped out of the base path for the out.

UCF was able to answer Southern Miss' run with one of their own in the bottom of the eighth when Kiko Vazquez’ double allowed Kyle Mills to trot in from third with the equalizing run. Ewing’s base hit down the left field line put Southern Miss back on top, 2-1. Southern Miss extended its lead further when Michael Ewing’s single down the right field line plated two more runs.

The Knights had their work cut out for them, as they faced a three-run deficit with only three outs left in the game. UCF started out the inning poorly after Shane Brown and D.J. Bissell grounded out to put UCF down to their last out. UCF went to work with that last out and loaded the bases with Tyson Auer at the plate. Auer hit a shot to second baseman Billy Hartel, who was unable to beat the speed of Auer. Hartel's throw was well off the
mark and bounced off the fence behind first and into right field. All three of UCF's runners scored and tied the game at four all sending the game into extra innings.

Southern Miss' batters went down without a fight and UCF was back up to bat with their chance to end their Conference USA losing streak. The Knights started out the inning with back-to-back singles, which advanced Romans to third with no outs. Shane Brown popped out to right, which put D.J. Bissell in a position to win the game. Bissell singled down the right field line and gave UCF their first conference win of the season.

Justin Weiss, who came in to pitch the last five outs, improved to 3-0 on the season. UCF did not commit an error in the game and out hit Southern Miss 13 to 12.

Saturday - USM 8 - UCF 3

Southern Miss starter David Clark was able to shutout UCF on Sunday in a complete game 7 inning performance. The Golden Eagles pitching staff held UCf to 7 runs during the series.

Kiko Vazquez hit his fifth home run of the year on a cold night, but it was not enough to overcome UCF's three errors as UCF fell to Southern Miss in the second game of the series. Vazquez's solo home run came a little too late as UCF was unable to rally from three runs down going into the bottom of the ninth as the Knights did on Friday night.

Southern Miss was able to put the game away in the top of the ninth when they entered the inning with a 5-3 lead and added three more runs to make the lead five at 8-3. Matt Hortwath led off the bottom of the ninth with a hit, but Southern Miss would get the next three batters to fly out.

Barry Bowden picked up the victory after allowing two runs and striking out seven in seven innings of work. UCF committed three errors during Saturday night’s game and were out hit by Southern Miss 11 to 10.

Sunday - USM 10 - UCF 0

Sunday's contest was once again played in cold temperatures relative to Orlando standards; however, Southern Miss' starter David Clark was red hot. Clark pitched a complete game shut out and struck out six Knight batters along the way as he only gave up three hits. UCF's starter Brett Bordwine was less fortunate from the mound, as he was only able to last four innings and gave up three runs including a solo homer to Michael Ewing.

Michael Ewing (behind umpire) celebrates his solo home run in the second inning Sunday. Southern Miss was able to tally up 4 home runs on UCF this weekend.

Ewing's shot to right field set the tone for the day, as Southern Miss was able to hit a total of three home runs and out hit UCF 8 to 3. Where the Knights got in to trouble was in the 4th and 5th inning.

Bordwine started out the 4th by walking the first two batters. After a single by Bailey Hartel scored the innings first run, he walked two more Southern Miss batters. Bordwine's fourth walk of the inning cost the Knights another run, who were fortunate to have first baseman Trey Sutton pop out to end the inning.

Matt McClung came in to pitch in the fifth inning in relief of Bordwine. UCF was not as fortunate as they were in the fourth inning at getting out trouble. After picking up a quick out when Ryan Dozier grounded out to third, Southern Miss was able to load the bases with a walk, a single and a fielding error by shortstop Eric Kallstrom. Jody Blount nailed a line drive to left field to knock in two runs for the Golden Eagles and a wild pitch by McClung advanced runners to thrid and second. Another batter was walked by McClung, who threw a wild pitch with the bases loaded to allow Michael Ewing to score the third run of the inning.

Southern Miss would cruise to the victory after two home runs by Trey Sutton in the sixth and seven innings built Southern Miss' lead to ten and ended the contest after just seven innings. Bordwine picked up his second loss on the
season and is now 2-2. UCF was held to 23 at bats in the abbreviated game.

Deja Vu
The last time the Knights lost a game due to the ten-run rule was last season when
Southern Miss run-ruled them in the final game of the year.

Conference Win
Friday night's extra inning win over Southern Miss was their first since they defeated UAB last year on April 21, 2006.

25
UCF's series with Southern Miss was only 25 total innings of baseball and one extra inning as opposed to 27 innings in a normal series. This was due to a conference rule that states if a team holds a ten run advantage at the end of the seventh inning then the game is over. Southern Miss led 10-0 at the end of the 7th and headed home to Hattiesburg a little early with the win.

Who's Next?
UCF will now travel up to Gainesville on Tuesday to play UF and then the
Knights are off this weekend. The Knights will travel to Tampa next week to play USF and then it’s onto Houston to play Rice over the weekend. UCF's next home game will be against USF on April 24 th. The game will be the third and final game this season against the Bulls.