The Siena Saints never had a prayer against the Knights

College Baseball’s opening weekend has come and gone. During that time, the Knights started off their season with a 3-0 record courtesy of sweeping the Siena Saints.

            Now that the season-opening jitters are out of the way, let’s look back at what happened to begin the year.

Recap of the Week(end)

Weekend

Siena (13-4, 11-0, 16-1 sweep)

The Good

• Baseball!
  • Baseball is back! This is always a good thing!
• Bullying Bullpen
  • The opening weekend gave fans a glimpse of what this bullpen can do, as a total of 10 Knight relievers combined to throw 13 ⅓ innings over the three games (starters on pitch counts), allowing just one run and striking out 18.
• Patience & Power
  • UCF’s hitters showed their discipline and plate skills over the weekend, walking 23 times in the three contests while striking out just 10 times (and not a single time in the series finale on Sunday!).
  • Around those patient plate appearances, the Knights racked up 14 extra-base hits during the weekend, including five home runs in Sunday’s game – the only five of the season thus far.

The Bad

• Turbulent Introductions
  • While the bullpen was dominant, the starting pitching left some things to be desired.
    • The season began with a first-pitch home run by Siena’s Nick Bergamotto over the foul pole in left.
  • Each starter faced some traffic in their first inning of the season but got helped out by some timely defensive plays. All in all, outside of Opening Knight starter Dom Stagliano, the starters did fare well.
    • Wiley Hartley and Grant Siegel combined for 10 shutout innings. They just have to limit the walks (six combined).

The Awesome

• Knight Nation Showed Out
  • Fans packed The John™ over opening weekend, averaging 2,016 fans over the three games.
• Ballpark Renovations
  • John Euliano Park now has some extra decorations chronicling the history of UCF Baseball in various sections. Check out the pillars on the concourse and the underneath of the upper deck down the first base line!

Despite the less-than-ideal start, the Knights came alive and eventually lived up to the expectation of the opening weekend by securing their first sweep since the second weekend series of last year’s campaign (Samford).

“Most teams on (opening) night … with the energy like that, they probably just got a little too amped,” says Head Coach Rich Wallace about the shaky start.

The resiliency shown by the team in 2024 has carried over, as the team rallied in the 6^th inning of the opening game to score seven runs to obliterate a 4-1 deficit that entered the frame. That would be the final lead the Saints saw for the weekend, as UCF’s pitching staff held them scoreless from the 4^th inning of game 1 into the 6^th inning of game 3, a total of 19 consecutive scoreless innings.

After several hard-hit balls settled into the gloves of Siena’s outfield or fell just shy of leaving the ballpark in the first two games, the offense, with the aid of some out-going wind, blasted five home runs in the series finale, two from Matt Prevesk and one each from Kendrey Maduro, Lex Boedicker, and Dylan King – the first of King’s collegiate career.

“Just went up there, not trying to do too much – hit the ball hard and then the wind took ‘em,” mentioned Prevesk after the third game about his performance.

One fun note with regards to the pitching. In 2024, there were just two instances of one of the Knight pitchers striking out the side in order. Saturday’s game featured three of those alone, and the staff managed it four times over the three games. Angelo Smith got that party started, continued by Wiley Hartley, Dominic Castellano, and Carter Stanford in the second game.

Castellano, voted a preseason All-Big 12 reliever, continued his strong 2024 with three perfect innings, striking out five batters of the nine that he faced.

“Attacking the zone early … I was able to get swings late in counts after getting ahead early,” Castellano noted of his outing.

The Week Ahead

The second year of the Rich Wallace era begins with another perfect start. The Knights will hope to at least match last year’s start, where the squad rattled off seven consecutive wins to begin the year before the first loss. Seven wins, incidentally, ended up being the longest win streak of the 2024 season.

They will have a chance to do that against the teams described below.

The game against Missouri (Wednesday) and only the first game against Bryant (Friday) will be televised, both on ESPN+ and starting at 6:30 PM. Games 2 & 3 against Bryant (Saturday & Sunday) will not be broadcast and start at 6:30 and 1:00 PM respectively.

Missouri Tigers (1-2)

Fun note: the Tigers are starting their season off with a pair of tournaments surrounding a couple of midweek games. They don’t have a multi-game series against a single team until their third weekend. They are also one of three (3) teams in the SEC with a Tiger mascot. This might be a good reason not to add Clemson to the SEC.

Thus far, Missouri dropped two of their first three games during a tournament down in Puerto Rico – one against Penn State and the other against nearby Stetson – while picking up their lone win against Connecticut, a team that made a Super Regional in 2024.

The Tigers are looking to have a bounceback 2025. After posting consecutive winning seasons in 2022 and 2023, they fell to a 23-32 record (9-21 in SEC play) in 2024. This was a team, however, who may have been looking for consistency, as they had just one player (third baseman Trevor Austin) play more than 50 games last season.

One player providing that consistency is infielder Mateo Serna, who had a solid weekend batting .364 and slugging one of the team’s five home runs over the weekend. Fellow infielder Brock Daniels provided a spark in a different way for the Tigers, stealing three bases while batting .400 and hitting another of those five homers.

Jackson Lovich is another hitter to keep an eye on – Lovich hit 10 home runs for Missouri in 2024, the most among their returning players, and slashed a respectable .287/.377/.540 on the year. He notched his first home run during the weekend and drove in four runs.

Bryant Bulldogs (1-1)

Welcome back! The Bulldogs opened the 2024 season against UCF resulting in a thrilling 12-11 Knights victory before rain washed away the other two games, although one had begun and ended in a no-contest while Bryant was leading 9-8. Bryant would go on to be a regional team, where they were the first team out in the Raleigh Regional.

As it turns out, Bryant once again has had to deal with a cancelation of an opening series game, as their February 16^th matchup against Davidson got washed away. The Bulldogs split their season opening matchups, both played on Friday the 14^th, with a 6-3 win and 3-2 defeat to Davidson.

Led by head coach and former Knight Ryan Klosterman, Bryant hopes to get back to a Regional in 2025, but first, they hope to get in all three games this weekend and avoid any further rainouts.

Offense

During those games, catcher Brandyn Durand smacked a pair of home runs – so far Bryant’s only two of the year – and drove in 5 of their 8 runs scored over the two games. Durand hit 11 home runs last year but struggled overall at the plate, striking out 68 times in 206 plate appearances.

Bryant does return the team’s best hitter in outfielder-turned-first baseman Gavin Noriega, who slashed .330/.468/.670 in 2024 with a team-leading 18 home runs and 58 runs driven in. He also stole nine bases last year and happened to snag one during this opening weekend, so he’ll be one to keep an eye on if he reaches base.

Similarly, outfielder Gavin Greger and the aforementioned catcher Brandyn Durand will require some attention whenever they get on base, as they led the team with 15 and 12 steals respectively, getting caught just a combined three times.

The Bulldogs may not have run much, but they did pick their spots and stole with high efficiency, successfully stealing a bag in 77.8% of attempts.

Pitching

Given the rainy situation out at Davidson, it becomes difficult to point out too much of Bryant’s pitching staff. However, freshman Michael Belcher stands out, as he started one of the two games and pitched four perfect innings, striking out seven in the process. Belcher was the only Bulldog to surpass three innings last weekend.

One pitcher who returned to the Bulldogs roster is Luke Delongchamp, who started 14 games in 2024 and posted a stellar 2.76 ERA over 65 ⅓ innings. In that time, he struck out 59 hitters and walked just 18. Defense did seem to fail him, as he gave up a total of 31 runs with only 20 of those being earned.

Another standout performance over the weekend for them was from senior Kyle Rizy, who struck out 5 over 2 ⅔ but did allow four baserunners (one hit and three walks). Overall, the staff walked 12 while striking out 22, perhaps indicating some effective wildness. The Knights will have to continue their patient approach at the plate and drive up pitch counts against this group.

Before We See Them

Due to circumstances outside of their control, Bryant gets an entire week off before facing the Knights. They were able to get in their double-header on the 14^th and do not have a midweek game for the second week of the season.

Final Notes

UCF looks to keep the momentum going after the opening weekend sweep and have a good chance to do so, hosting all four of the upcoming games. The Knights do not go on the road until February 28^th, where they will face That Team Out West for a weekend series. With that in mind, make sure to continue packing The John™ and supporting the Knights!