ORLANDO – The University of Central Florida Knights were defeated 4-1 against the University of Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles on Saturday afternoon, March 30 at Jay Bergman field on UCF campus.
The Knights lose the series at home. Both teams the Knights are still in third place with and 18-11 record in the overall standings and now are in third place in Conference USA standing with a 4-2 record for this season. There under fellow conference teams Houston and Rice.
UCF Head Baseball Coach Terry Rooney was upset about this lost but plans to move on from it.
“Credit to Southern Miss today they played a little better than us today, we talked about it all the every single day and every single night college baseball comes down to a pitch or two on both sides offensively and defensively and they played a little bit better than us,” said Rooney about today’s loss for the Knights.
Southern Mississippi Head Baseball Coach Scott Barry was satisfied about todays win against the Knights.
“The strategy was after the heartbreaker from last night we wanted to come out and challenge and compete against a good club UCF and it started in the mound with Conor Fisk and I think we had a good plan with UCF’s left hander and scratch for some runs and in two innings and backed it up with some good pitching,” Said Barry about today win against UCF.
Southern Mississippi pitcher Conor Fisk pitched a efficient game against the Knights and earned the win for the Golden Eagles. Fisk ended the game with six innings pitched and seven strikeouts in todays game.
UCF pitcher Brian Adkins struggled in todays game with only 4 ½ innings pitched and allowing eight hits and four runs against the Golden Eagles.
By the fourth inning Southern Mississippi started the rally with a hit from Southern Mississippi catcher Chase Fowler hits a double to left field and moves on to third with an error from Knights left fielder Parker Webster and then Golden Eagles took the lead with a two run homer from shortstop Travis Creel and scoring in Fowler. Southern Mississippi lead 2-0.
Fowler went 2-4 against the Knights and Creel went 1-4 in todays game.
It didn’t look good for the Knights in the fourth until they retaliated in the same inning with Knights right Fielder Erik Hempe hits a single and ends up stealing second. After catcher Chris Taladay hits a single and scores in Hempe making it a one run game for the Knights. But Southern Mississippi lead 2-1. Hempe went 2-for-3 for the Knights.
In the fifth inning Southern Mississippi did some damage when right fielder Mason Robbins hits a single to right field and then first baseman Blake Brown hits a laser over the left field fence and making it a three run game. Southern Mississippi lead 4-1, Robbins went 3-for-3 in todays game and Brown went 1-for-4 against the Knights.
By the ninth inning the Knights had some hope when Taladay hits a two run home run to far left field fence against closing pitcher Bradley Roney and making it a one run game for the Knights. Talady went 2-for-4 in todays game against Southern Mississippi.
At the ninth inning USM closer Bradley Roney ended up closing the game and getting the save for the Golden Eagles.
The Knights next game is on April 2nd at he University of Florida against the Gators.
