It may have taken an extra inning, but the UCF baseball team (23-6, 5-1 C-USA) pulled out their fifth sweep of the season in a 3-1, 10-inning ballgame against Houston (10-16, 1-5 C-USA) Sunday afternoon.
“We talked before the game about toughness,” head coach Terry Rooney said in a press release from UCFAthletics.com. “A lot of the time it is about finding a will and a way. We made the comment, ‘whatever it takes’ and the guys did that today against a very good Houston team with an outstanding starting pitcher.”
After a first inning lead off home run, Ronnie Richardson gave the Knights exactly what they needed in the 10th to break a 1-1 tie game. With one out, Richardson singled to center field, and then motored all the way to third on a Darnell Sweeney single through the second base gap.
D.J. Hicks brought the go ahead run home with his second single of the game, and Chris Taladay chalked up an insurance run to give the Knights a 3-1 lead that would seal the deal. Taladay went three-for-five as the Knights top five batters accounted for all 10 hits in the game.
Joe Rogers notched his second win of the season, coming in to start the eighth inning and striking out three batters over his three innings of lock down pitching. Roy Hanson started the game and pitched 5.2 innings of one-run ball before Roman Madrid set up Rogers by retiring four straight and adding two strikeouts to his resume.
The win puts the Knights on a four-game win streak, winning 10 of the last 11 games, before they travel to Coral Gables for a second chance at taking down the Miami Hurricanes. Last time, the Knights and the No. 8 ranked Canes faced off was three weeks ago when UCF surrendered an eighth inning run and lost 3-2.
UCF will look to record their first win over a top-10 team this season at 6 p.m. on Wednesday night at Mark Light Field against the Hurricanes.
