For the second time this season and for the second straight game, Auburn baseball has lost. Friday, the Tigers dropped 1-3 and Saturday the Tigers fell to the Knights again by a score of 7-3.
“I like that we kept competing in the ballgame it just seemed like for seven innings again, their pitching did a great job,” head coach Butch Thompson said after the game. “I tip my hat to UCF on the series here.”
While the bats were quiet most of the night, Auburn struck first in the third with Judd Ward getting a single and Ryan Bliss tripling off the centerfield wall to drive him home.
The slider was a major issue for the Tigers as they could not lay off it, striking out 12 times over the ballgame.
“Yesterday we got the fastball driven by us, today it was two strikes and an off-speed pitch,” Thompson said. “It was probably a ball almost every time, but we swung over it.”
The Tigers stranded 11 runners on base and batted 4-20 with runners on.
Lefty Jack Owen got the nod and started hot, retiring the lineup the first time through in just 29 pitches with three strikeouts and no hits.
Owen continued to rack up strikeouts, finishing with five, but after his first walk of the game in the fourth, Jordan Rathbone crushed one over the left field wall to put the Knights up 2-1.
Following a leadoff double in the sixth, Owen was pulled with Richard Fitts coming in for relief.
Owen ended the game giving up just one hit with two earned runs.
“The first three innings were just tremendous,” Thompson said.
An overthrown pitch to the first batter advanced the runner and a Dalton Wingo single up the middle brought in the runner.
The scoring didn't stop there as Tom Josten doubled to deep center, Rathbone doubled to right and a Nick Romano single put UCF up 6-1 before Fitts worked his way out of the inning.
“They didn’t greet Richard Fitts so well today,” Thompson said. “He got better after he faced a few hitters but the damage was kinda done.”
An infield single and hit-by-pitch put two Tigers on base in the bottom of the sixth, but a short flyout to right from Johnny Ceccoli and a groundout from Garrett Farquhar quickly ended the scoring threat.
Fitts pitched just one inning before Seb Thomas came in for him. Thomas struck out the first batter he faced, but ended up giving an RBI double to Wingo before Carson Skipper came in to close out the seventh.
Conor Davis and Rankin Woley got on-base in the eighth, but only Davis was able to score on a sac-fly from Matt Scheffler. The run marked the fourth straight game Scheffler drove in a run.
Down five in the ninth, Garrett Farquhar got a leadoff walk, Brayton Brown singled up the middle and Judd Ward singled to left to load the bases.
Ryan Bliss reached safely after an E6 to bring Auburn within four, but Davis popped up to center, and Rankin Woley and Tyler Miller struck out to end the game.
“Frustration started building today,” Thompson said. “I was glad to see us finish and keep competing. We can’t get mad, we can’t get sad, we gotta keep pushing, we’ve only played seven baseball games.”
Auburn will look to bounce back and take game three of the series tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. CST.
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