Rollercoaster fortnight for the Knights

(Writer’s note: I appreciate the patience between articles, a lot has been going on, all is good now and ready to fully get back to baseball!)

The long journey of baseball is not for the faint of heart.

The Knights started off the year hot, sweeping their opening series and pushing full steam ahead towards a perfect first two weeks. Then, as happens often in baseball, that momentum came to a screeching halt.

A pair of close losses, followed by what can only be described as an embarrassing shellacking at the hands of a rival squad. Or, perhaps, was this a wake-up call for the team?

Recap of the Weeks

Week 2

Midweek

Missouri (7-1 W, Thursday 2/20 – pushed back due to weather)

Weekend

Bryant (7-6 W/wo, 4-2 W, 3-5 L)

Week 3

Midweek

FAU (3-4 L)

Weekend

usf (3-13 L, 12-1 W, 12-2 W – all games 7 innings due to run rule)

The Good

• Rolling Resiliency
  • The Knights found themselves down in games multiple times during this stretch, and multiple times found their way back into the game with timely hitting and strong pitching.
• Bats Finally Hot
  • The Knights offense appeared to figure something out over the second weekend, winning both games by run rule and putting up a dozen runs in both contests.
• Pitching Consistency
  • With one exception, the pitching staff has been able to keep games close late to give the offense a chance to come back.

The Bad

• Struggling Stags
  • Within this consistency on the pitching side, the unfortunate bit of that is the Knights’ Friday starter Dom Stagliano having consistently poor outings. UCF will need him to get it turned around if they want to have a chance to make a deep run this season.
• Losses Mounted Quickly
  • The three consecutive losses for the Knights matches their 2024 total for out-of-conference games, where the squad went 19-3.
    • Granted – who knows how that second Bryant game last season would have ended? It was 9-8 in Bryant’s favor when it got called.

The Random

• Hot Dog!
  • Former college baseball pitcher and current Rad Individual Stephen Schoch gave UCF Baseball’s hot dogs a 9.4 out of 10 rating in a game against Bryant.
    • For comparison, the Cow Barn out west got 9.3/10. Just another War on I-4 Win for UCF!

College baseball dog review: UCF

9.4/10 This dog was a symphony of flavors and let me tell you this puppy could sing pic.twitter.com/zeSeikiSQh

— Stephen Schoch (@bigdonkey47) February 23, 2025

The prior two weeks started off well enough for the Knights, taking an easy victory over Missouri before taking two games against Bryant with both involving late-game heroics, just ahead of dropping their first game of the season.

Matt Sauser made his Knight debut with a strong four-inning outing against the Tigers, striking out four in the process. The two Andrews – Andrew Williamson and Andrew Sundean – along with Lex Boedicker provided all the offense in this one, giving Sauser and the Knights an early lead that allowed them to coast to victory.

Game one against Bryant seemed bleak, as the Bulldogs jumped on Stagliano early in the second inning and held a 6-4 advantage entering the 9^th. The Knight offense, however, decided that outs were no longer an option, and a no-out pinch-hit walk-off two-run single by Edian Espinal with the bases loaded got the team a weekend opening victory. Espinal has since been in every game.

Game two of the series saw great pitching from Wiley Hartley (who could see a move up to Friday soon enough if trends continue) and Kris Sosnowski, combining for 12 strikeouts and just one walk (seven hits) allowed in this one. A late pair of errors in the 8^th inning by Bryant allowed Matt Prevesk to step up and put his mark on the game with a two-run double into the left field corner to break a tie and eventually win the game.

The third game was a matter of being unable to put together clean innings and Bryant flawlessly executing the small ball game. Four total sacrifices in the game by the Bulldogs helped lead them to four of their five runs and their pitching staff kept the Knight hitters at bay long enough to secure a win.

Week three opened with a midweek contest against the FAU Owls, and in a contest that was truly a game of inches and timing went their way. The Knights grabbed a lead in the 4^th, but shifts and some slow rollers allowed the Owls to retake the lead in the 6^th, and missed opportunities at the plate for the Knights spelled out their doom. The Knights left two on in the 7^th, two more in the 8^th, and had the tying run on 3^rd in the 9^th and found themselves unable to bring in any to at least knot the game up at 4.

Following this, the Knights headed out west down I-4 to face rival south florida. Game one was all about the bulls, as they jumped on Stagliano early and poured it on against Spencer Bauer in the 3^rd. Bulls starter Corey Braun went 6 ⅓ innings striking out 9 Knights en route to a victory in a game that ended in the 7^th due to the 10-run rule.

Some tempers flared in this one, as Antonio Jimenez hit a home run in the 5^th and may have celebrated a bit too much despite being down five after the homer. DeAmez Ross took exception to being hit by the very next pitch, but cooler heads prevailed in the end. While warnings were issued, ultimately no player or coach was ejected.

As noted in the opening paragraphs, this loss may have been a wakeup call for the Knights, as they woke up ready to hit the next day, putting up six in the first with a Williamson two-run blast followed shortly thereafter by a Jimenez grand slam. This allowed starter Wiley Hartley to settle in and simply go after the usf hitters, striking out five and allowing just three hits and a single run over six innings, the first Knight to make it through six on the year. As the game went on, UCF continues to tack on runs and put this one away with a run-rule victory of their own.

The rubber match played out similarly, with the Knights grabbing an early lead with a Williamson RBI single and home runs by Dylan King and Espinal. After the bulls grabbed a pair of runs in the 4^th, Lex Boedicker added a three-run blast of his own and the Knights kept the bats moving after that, adding two in the 6^th and three in the 7^th to have consecutive run-rule victories. Grant Siegel, Dominic Castellano, and Sosnowski combined to allow eight hits and just the two runs while striking out seven in the contest.

The Run-Ruling of the Bulls 😤 pic.twitter.com/sBuwM5nFMB

— UCF Baseball (@UCF_Baseball) March 2, 2025

The Week Ahead

Overall, the Knights went 5-3 over the last two weeks, yet those three losses felt agonizing, given that they were consecutive and culminated in that run-rule loss. The team will hope to continue the momentum gained over the final two games of the weekend as they welcome in their first ranked opponent.

Florida Gators (11-1)

It has been seven years since the Gators have come down to Orlando to play at The John™, and they are coming in on a roll, having won all but their most recent contest to date. The back-to-back Omaha-bound Gators haven’t started off this hot since 2020, when they rattled off 16 consecutive wins to start that season shortly before … well, we all know what happened.

Gators Catcher/DH Brody Donay has started the year on an absolute tear, leading the Gators in just about every offensive category except for stolen bases (although he has three of those). Donay leads them in home runs (6), the triple-slash categories (.432/.571/1.000), and is tied for the team lead in walks with infielder Bobby Boser.

Boser, it should be noted, has five home runs of his own and has a team-leading (tied) 14 RBI in 2025. He’s currently tied for the team lead in hits (17) as well and has stolen four bases of his own.

Fellow infielders Cade Kurland and Brendan Lawson are also hitting the ball hard around the field, each batting over .350 with an OPS north of 1.000. All told, it’s going to be extremely difficult to navigate this lineup, as only two Gators with at least nine games played thus far is batting under .300. Knight Nation will need to show up for this one and give the team some energy!

Monmouth Hawks (3-7)

Here’s an interesting note that the Knights hope to not cause a change on – the Hawks haven’t hit a home run yet this year in 10 games! Overall they have just 18 extra-base hits (4 triples, 14 doubles) and have just two players hitting over .260 with significant playing time to this point.

One of those is infielder Casey Caufield, who has four of those 14 doubles and 12 hits on the season, both leading the team. He also leads the Hawks in stolen bases with 4. The other Hawk hitting over .260 is DH Harry Padden, who leads the team in the triple-slash categories (.344/.432/.438).

On the mound, Monmouth has a pair of starters who have toed the rubber at the beginning of three games, those being Tommy Kent and JD Greeley. These pitchers have thrown 13 and 12 innings respectively, putting up ERAs of 4.15 and 7.50 thus far. Greeley has allowed opponents to hit .333 against him but does appear to have the best strikeout stuff on the staff, as he currently leads the Hawks in that category with 11.

Another option to start for them is Kevin Opanel, who has made two starts thus far and allowed two runs over six innings to this point. Overall, the Hawks don’t strike out too many hitters and do seem to give up their fair share of walks, so the Knights will want to be patient against them.

The Hawks will play at New Jersey Tech (5-5) on Wednesday before coming down to Orlando for their three-game weekend set. This series will be the final out-of-conference series for the Knights in 2025, as the following weekend (starting on Thursday the 13^th) they will head up to BYU to begin Big XII play.