The 2026 Collegiate Baseball season began tonight across the country. Here in Orlando, the UCF Knights got their season started the right way with a 16-to-nothing opening-night beatdown over the Siena Saints.
Junior Braden Smith took the mound for the Knights. The Maryville transfer had himself a night in his first appearance with this UCF squad, tossing six scoreless innings and striking out five.
He went up against Lefty Tyler Sausville for Siena, who threw a scoreless first inning, but then the Knights opened it up.
The second inning was underway, and with some help from Siena’s defense, a two-out error on a pop-up to second base gave the Knights an early 2-0 lead.
During the third, a Landon Moran sac fly drove in a run, his first of five RBIs on the night.
Bottom of the fourth, the Knights had bases loaded, Landon Moran was up to bat again, as he turned on the first pitch fastball and crushed it over the right field bullpen for a grand slam, blowing the game open for the Knights in what would be a five-run fourth inning.
During the fifth, Siena could not get out of its own way: two separate balks scored two runs, and a fielding error scored a third, making it 12-0 UCF. A DeAmez Ross solo shot to right center, an Andrew Willamson RBI triple, and a sac fly by Zak Skinner would push the lead to 16-0.
Kaniel Rosado would come in to pitch a clean seventh inning, and Siena would be done for the night as the game would end in a mercy rule.
The Knights start the new campaign off right with a 16-0 win.
They will look to follow this performance up on Valentine’s Day. Junior pitcher Joey Trombley gets the start for the Knights in this 1:00 PM contest.
