UCF baseball update: UCF Strikes Out The Competition In Two Mid-Week Games

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

UCF picked up two home victories on back to back nights this week against the likes of Michigan State and Northeastern. The Golden Knights improved to 8-9 on the year and look to keep rolling as they head into a weekend series against Massachusetts.

Tuesday - UCF 7 - Michigan State 5
Freshman pitcher Carmine Giardina carried the Golden Knights to a big win over the Spartans on Tuesday night. Giardina struck out ten while notching his first collegiate victory for his efforts and he was very humble about his outing as he gave credit to the entire team.

“I had a lot of confidence and (Steve) Stropp did a great job behind the plate blocking everything, so I had confidence throwing my curve ball in the dirt," said Giardina, "The defense made plays and that helped me a lot. It was a great team win tonight."

Giardina finished the night with ten strikeouts while surrendering three hits, walking three and allowing a run in his six innings.

Tyson Auers stole four bases on the evening after he reached base via walks. Auer now has ten stolen bases for the 2007 season.

Big Ten
The Golden Knights are now 2-0 this season against Big Ten opponents.

Wednesday - UCF 5 - Northeastern 2
Brett Bordwine decided to do one better than teammate Giardina, as he was able to strikeout 14 batters in a win the next night against Northeastern. The Golden Knights were error free for the second game in a row as they picked up the victory over Northeastern.

Bordwine picked up his first victory of the season after a 6.2 inning outing, which saw him allow four hits, but no runs while striking out 14 Northeastern batters.

The Golden Knights cruised to a 5-0 lead after Kiki Vazquez knocked in three runs on a 2-of-4 night at the plate. Northeastern finally got on the board in the ninth inning, but it was not able to come all the way back from its five run whole and lost 5-2.

Tyson Auer picked up his 11 th stolen base of the year and was 2-of-4 on the night while scoring one run.

Who’s Next?
After playing five games in six days, UCF had three days off. The Knights will host UMASS this weekend in a three game series, as they continue to ride the momentum of their pitching staff this week and could possibly have a winning record at the end of the weekend.