Hurricanes hand Gators their first loss
It’s been a tough week for the Miami Hurricanes, who entered their series finale against defending national champion Florida having lost four in a row, including two weekend games against the Gators.
Worse, they’d also lost six in a row to their instate rivals, but that frustration — finally — came to an end Sunday afternoon.
Behind a stellar outing from starter Evan McKendry and on the strength of some well-timed hits from Michael Burns, Miami (3-4) notched a 2-0 win over the Gators (7-1) at Mark Light Field, avoiding the series sweep and picking up their third win of the young season.
Miami also handed the top-ranked Gators their first loss of the year.
The win was the Hurricanes’ first over Florida since Feb. 27, 2016, and only the second over UF in the teams’ last 12 meetings dating back to 2015.
“It’s really a big win for us, needless to say,” Miami coach Jim Morris said. “Florida’s got a really good club, ranked No. 1 in the country as everyone knows. It was a tremendous challenge for us to play against them with the pitching they have and what they have going right now. … This will give some of our young guys confidence to move forward. The big thing for me, whether we won or lost, was for our team to understand what it takes to beat a good club and to play with a good club and they did that.”
No. 24 UCF delivered two six-run innings Sunday, helping seal a 15-4 win and series sweep of Savannah State.
The Knights (4-3) up a season-high 14 put hits and 13 RBI, with eight different players driving in a run against the Tigers (2-5).
“We took care of business today,” UCF coach Greg Lovelady said Sunday. “That’s something you need to do when you have a chance to sweep. When you look back at the end of the year, you have to make sure you don’t throw away these types of games. I was proud of the guys offensively. We took a much larger step forward. One through nine, we got a lot better at-bats. We had a lot of crooked numbers, and that was awesome to see.”
No. 5 Florida State (7-0) beat Troy 9-4 on a wet and rainy Sunday afternoon at Dick Howser Stadium, improving to improve to 7-0 on the season. FSU scored five runs on five hits in the second inning before a 78-minute rain delay. Freshman pitcher Austin Pollock (1-0) threw six innings, allowing one earned run on five hits for his first career win.
Pollock started Sunday’s game after the season-ending injury last week to All-American Tyler Holton. The Tallahassee native overcame the lengthy weather delay and a defense that committed three errors against the Trojans (4-4) for his first career win during his second appearance.
“I have to be honest, he’s a lot different than I thought he would be,” FSU coach Mike Martin said of Pollock. “I thought he would come over in the fall, be intimidated. Have not seen any of that. I knew he was good when I overheard some players talking, ‘I can’t see the ball off that guy.’ ”
Stetson sophomore Mitchell Senger tossed a no-hitter with 16 strikeouts, helping the Hatters earn a 3-0 win over George Washington Sunday.
The Boca Raton native allowed one walk while hitting two batters. Stetson delivered a three-run outburst in the seventh inning, sealing the win.
The no-hitter was the fifth in Stetson baseball history and the first since Chris Byrnes no-hit Rider College in 1986.