Knights beat Wildcats ahead of final series of regular season

UCF baseball scored 6 runs in the third inning on its way to a 10-2 five-inning win against Bethune-Cookman Tuesday night at John Euliano Park.

The game was called after an hour delay in the top of the sixth due to storms.

“I’m glad we got to get guys in some work and obviously beat the rain to get the win,” UCF coach Greg Lovelady said. “I would have liked to play a couple more innings, get some more guys some work but Mother Nature didn’t cooperate.”

Bethune-Cookman (23-29) jumped to a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning before UCF outfielder Gephry Pena hit a solo home run to tie in the bottom of the first.

The Knights (31-21) opened up their lead in the third inning when freshman outfielder Lex Boedicker hit a 3-run home run to right. Freshman infielder Cole Russo followed that up with a 3-run homer of his own, giving UCF a 7-1 lead.

The Wildcats were able to cut the deficit by one before UCF tacked on three more runs in the fourth. After infielder Noah Orlando scored on a passed ball, catcher Ben McCabe hit an 2-RBI single to score Tom Josten and Boedicker, putting UCF ahead 10-2.

That’s when the rain and lightning arrived to cut short the game.

Despite the abbreviated game, Lovelady was glad to see his team continue to score runs after winning two out of three games at Houston this past weekend.

“It was good to get some runs on the board and keep feeling good about ourselves heading into the last weekend,” the UCF coach said.

The Knights (13-8 AAC) head into the final weekend of the regular season tied with Houston (13-8 AAC) for second place in the American Athletic Conference.

Both teams are behind East Carolina (17-4 AAC).

Riding a three-game win streak, UCF faces Cincinnati (21-28, 10-11 AAC) in a crucial series before the start of the AAC tournament next week in Clearwater.

“[We’re] going to need some guys to step up and whoever it’s going be, it’s probably going be somebody different every game that’s going to need to be the guy,” Lovelady said.

While every team in the conference is able to play in the conference tournament regardless of its league record, Lovelady stressed the importance of the final three games of the regular season.

“We can’t go in with the mindset that these games don’t matter because they do,” Lovelady said.

“They matter in terms of you never know what at-bat is going to lock you in; you never know what inning it’s going to be that locks you in.”