Knights cap off perfect week, including win over Miami

A month of the college baseball season has gone by, and the Knights have finally gone out of Florida for some games. One might be hard-pressed to find a more drastic difference in environment and the weather than UCF had to handle for this conference-opening series.

After one more midweek home contest against in-state Miami, the Knights went out to the absolutely gorgeous Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains, settling in Provo, Utah for a dramatic set of games with BYU.

We’re underway in Provo! pic.twitter.com/guZI0mjSLi

— UCF Baseball (@UCF_Baseball) March 15, 2025

Recap of the Week

Midweek

Miami (14-4 W)

Weekend

BYU (9-8 W, 7-8 L/10, 7-6 W)

The Good

• Stagliano Sustaining Success
  • Starter and expected ace Dom Stagliano backed up his strong start against Monmouth with arguably a better performance, giving UCF four innings of two-run ball while striking out six.
    • A later note will give further explanation why his four-inning outing could be better than the six he gave against Monmouth.
• Kardiac Knights
  • The boys are at it again – in each game against BYU, the Knights trailed and came back to at least have a lead in each contest, including multiple comebacks in the series opening victory.
• Up to the Challenge
  • Following nearly two weeks’ worth of blowout victories, UCF showed their mettle and resolve in close, high-pressure contests with the two victories, and even so in the loss, coming back from four runs down in the 9^th to take the lead, albeit a brief one.

The Bad

• Disappearing Defense?
  • Entering this week, UCF boasted one of the best defensive units in the country, having committed just 10 errors on the season, prior to committing four recorded errors during the week.
    • Stagliano’s outing could have been scoreless and through five or even six innings, had a couple of fly balls not found their way off some gloves near the wall. Stags threw 74 pitches in the outing. Some home cooking in the scorekeeping, as neither was ruled an error.
    • A dropped fly ball in foul territory later in the game could have been disastrous, as the bases were loaded with two outs at the time, but luckily for the Knights, the Cougars were unable to capitalize on their fortune.
    • The one play in game three that was ruled an error was on a routine ground ball that got booted. This occurred the same inning as the dropped foul ball. Another play in this inning easily could have been ruled a throwing error as well.
• The Streak is Over
  • UCF found themselves working towards double-digits in the win streak, only to see that snapped in the middle game of the weekend set thanks to a game-tying homer in the bottom of the 9^th and an eventual walk-off winner in the 10^th for BYU. UCF’s win streak concluded with eight consecutive victories, the longest in the Rich Wallace tenure to date.
    • With That Being Said™, this second game should have been over in the top of the 9^th, but a genuinely baffling “call stands” occurred in this inning that gave the Knights an extra out as DeAmez Ross was gifted an infield single on a play that showed he was clearly out on replay. The call on the field matters to an extreme degree at times.

The Other

• Weather or Not …
  • There certainly had to be some further consideration of moving these games around, as the teams had to endure biting cold, freezing rain, and snow during the contests.

As captain and catcher Dylan King put it, “we just have to embrace the suck,” and the Knights certainly did that.

King said this following their midweek game against the Miami Hurricanes, in which UCF found themselves once again winning a game that wasn’t close. First baseman and fellow captain Lex Boedicker had himself a night, tying a career high with 6 RBI including his fourth three-run homer in a six-game span.

“[We’re] just sticking to our approach … getting pitches we want [to hit] and hammering them,” Boedicker mentioned after the win against Miami. Coincidentally, Lex wears the number 3.

Right fielder Andrew Williamson found his way on and around the bases often, walking three times, hitting a double and triple (and nearly homering later), crossing home plate four times in this one.

UCF used six pitchers in the win against Miami with none going more than two innings per the team’s gameplan as they prepared for an early turnaround with a series starting on a Thursday rather than a Friday. Following a Grant Siegel start, Dominic Castellano entered in the third with two runners on and no outs, and as he’s done time and time again, found a way to keep the opposition off the board despite the pressure. The four relievers following Castelano combined to allow three hits and one unearned run over the final five innings.

Following this, the Knights flew out to face BYU for their first conference series of the season, and it certainly provided a ton of drama. On top of the extreme cold, the teams had to navigate around a schedule change with the first two games moving up from an 8 PM eastern (6 mountain) start time to 4 and 5 (2 and 3) respectively, then dealt with driving rain with a lightning delay in the opening contest and a snow delay pushed the finale back to a 5 (3) PM start.

While the Knights got off to a quick start in the opening game, Kris Sosnowski ran into some trouble after a strong first couple of innings. Sos gave up two in the third, another in the fourth, and allowed a lead-off double in the fifth before giving way to Angelo Smith who gave the Knights a couple innings.

After the Knights got into BYU’s bullpen and tied up the game in the 7^th, Castellano entered and found himself facing not only the heart of BYU’s order, but rain and a strong outgoing wind. He would end up striking out three in the inning, but not before giving up a three-run homer to BYU’s Cooper Vest that seemed like a jammed, routine fly ball off the bat.

UCF took advantage of that wind in the top of the 8^th, however, getting back-to-back home runs from DeAmez Ross (his first) and Edian Espinal (third) with both going out to left like Vest’s. Similarly, both seemed to be routine plays off the bat, and ended up getting over the wall. A lightning delay followed this, and once play resumed, Andrew Williamson got on with a double and moved to third on a wild pitch with no outs, eventually being driven in by Braden Calise as the winning run, as Alex Galvan came in after to lock it down. Not without drama, however, as two batters reached base against him in the ninth, but he was able to get the final hitter to roll one out to second for a game-ending double play.

Game two saw the first hiccup of the year from Wiley Hartley, as he went just 3 ⅓ innings giving up five. The bullpen held steady for the most part, as after James Lordi gave the Knights an inning allowing a run, Kevin Schoneboom entered and had easily the best outing he’s had on the season, striking out six in three innings.

The Knights entered the 9^th down 6-2, and as mentioned previously with some help from the replay booth, stormed back to score five and take a brief lead before Cooper Vest once again went yard to left field, this time off Spencer Bauer on the first pitch of the 9^th inning. Russell Sandefer entered a couple batters later, but a leadoff walk in the 10^th ended up being the eventual winning run, as a sacrifice bunt and a walk-off single ended the Knights’ winning streak.

The third and final game of the series was a bit more of a standard back-and-forth for a bit, with the Knights and Cougars exchanging runs for the first five-and-a-half innings before UCF found themselves pulling away towards the end. A home run and RBI single from Espinal followed up later by a Dylan King home run gave the Knights a 3-2 advantage into the 8^th, when King drove in two more with a triple, then UCF grabbed two more (as it turned out) extremely important insurance runs with an RBI double from Erick Almonte, Jr. (entered as a pinch-runner for Andrew Sundean) and RBI single from Lex Boedicker with two outs.

With a five-run lead, the Knights looked to Carter Stanford to wrap things up. Stanford entered in the 8^thinning and held BYU scoreless, but suddenly the Cougars decided to protest making outs. Single, single, single, walk, single, single started the inning for BYU, and in a single heart-pounding moment, it was a one-run game.

As Angelo Smith found himself staring down the possibility of the winning run at second base, he was able to pitch effectively enough to thwart a sacrifice bunt attempt, eventually recording a strikeout before the following hitter bounced into the second game-ending double play of the series, and the Knights got on their flight that evening winners of the first Big XII series of the season.

UCF will be glad to be back in the state of Florida for the upcoming week and a half and not having to deal with the snow and cold for at least that long.

The Week Ahead

“Ah, warmth!” – everyone on the Knights travel party, probably.

24hr update on the conditions…

87 with a 0% chance of snow 😎 https://t.co/t0JKIoKJH2 pic.twitter.com/EHJd0unYfH

— UCF Baseball (@UCF_Baseball) March 16, 2025

UCF is continuing the road trip to begin this coming week, technically, but in a much warmer, much closer to home location, as they will hop on a bus and head just a little bit North to Deland to face the Stetson Mad Hatters. Following this, they will return to The John™ to open the home slate of conference play.

Stetson Mad Hatters (11-10) (Tuesday, March 18, ESPN+, 6:30 PM)

Common Opponents:

• BYU (1-3 series loss)
• Stetson will follow the UCF game with a series against Jacksonville, who UCF will play for their following midweek contest.

Fun fact, only two teams from Florida have ever played at BYU, and they happened consecutively! Stetson went up to Provo the prior week for the four-game set mentioned above before UCF arrived.

Stetson is coming off an ASUN conference opening series win against Florida Gulf Coast, taking the second and third game of the series after dropping five of seven over the prior week.

Offensively, the Hatters are led by shortstop Lorenzo Meola, who will hit the century mark in plate appearances when the Knights and Hatters square off Tuesday barring unforeseen circumstances.

Meola, a junior, has been a key part of Stetson’s offense all three seasons there, and continues to take steps forward as he leads the team with 4 home runs and 16 RBI (tied with outfielder Landon Russell in this category) while slashing .321/.433/.551 on the season. His 22 runs scored far outpaced the rest of the team, as the second-most runs scored on the squad is 14.

The aforementioned Russell and fellow outfielder Jordan Taylor each have three home runs but are both prone to striking out, leading the team in that category with 22 and 18 respectively. These two and Meola lead the Hatters in plate appearances and are the only three to have gone above 80 in that category so far.

Other solid hitters include freshman Foster Apple (great name!), who has yet to go yard in 2025 but is slashing .340/.478/.396 over 68 plate appearances. Junior infielder Landon Moran is putting up similarly solid numbers, slashing .333/.484/.500 on the year with a pair of homers.

Overall, the Hatters will run a bit when they get on base, having stolen 37 bags in 50 attempts on the season.

Houston Cougars (11-7, 0-3 Big XII) Friday-Sunday March 21-23, 6 PM, 6 PM, 1 PM, all on ESPN+

(No common opponents to this point)

Houston started off the 2025 campaign strong, winning their first four series of the year (Minnesota, California, UT Arlington, and Grambling) before suffering a rather surprising sweep at the hands of in-state Texas Tech, who entered the weekend with a paltry 3-11 record.

As an aside, these two schools’ football teams will play in the Space Game this year. Should the baseball team bring out the Space U jerseys for the full weekend? Back to the preview!

Pitching

UCF and Houston have a parallel here in that their expected ace for the season (Stagliano, Ryan Dollar) struggled to begin the season and were moved off the Friday start in the rotation. Dollar has since been moved to the midweek matchups where Stags is now manning Sundays. Dollar’s ERA is sitting at 9.90 with just 10 innings pitched, including a ⅓-inning appearance on opening day.

The two mainstays thus far in the weekend rotation for Houston have been Paul Schmitz and Graysen Drezek. Schmitz has posted an ERA of 3.76 in his five starts spanning 26 ⅓ innings, striking out just 16 in the process but holding batters to a low .212 batting average. Drezek, on the other hand, has an ERA just south of 8 over his 19 ⅔ frames, allowing 26 hits to give opposing hitters a .313 average.

For the last two weekends, the Cougars have used Richie Roman as their game three starter, but he hasn’t fared much better than Dollar and Drezek. Roman does appear to have some swing-and-miss stuff, as he has 23 strikeouts in just 13 innings, holding a 33.8% K-Rate on the year, but when he gets hit, it’s usually well. Roman’s ERA sits at 6.23 with opponents hitting .298 against him.

Should Houston decide to make another change to the rotation for the weekend, keep an eye out for freshman Kendall Hoffman, who has the best ERA on the team for anyone who has thrown at least five innings at 1.93 (14 innings). Hoffman has 14 strikeouts and just 12 hits allowed, giving Houston a solid option for another change.

Graduate student Antoine Jean leads the Cougars by a wide margin in strikeouts, having punched out 33 hitters and holding them to a .127 average over 21 innings spanning 7 appearances. Expect to see Jean at least once over the weekend.

Offense

The Cougar bats have had a solid start to the year, with five of their regular hitters posting an OPS of .900 or better, and three with an OPS north of 1.000 thus far.

Infielder Connor McGinnis is a player the Knight pitching staff will have to be careful with, as his OPS of 1.332 puts him in the top 40 players in the nation. McGinnis has a great eye at the plate and will make pitchers work for their outs when he’s up there, drawing 13 walks to just 11 strikeouts, and he’s thrown in five stolen bases to boot without being caught yet. He’s one of four Houston players with at least four home runs on the year and is second on the team in RBI with 18.

Outfielders Xavier Perez and Tre Broussard also have four home runs and are part of that quintet of batters having an OPS of .900 or better. Broussard will need careful attention when he gets on base, as he easily paces this club in steals with 11 and has yet to be caught. Perez, meanwhile, leads the squad in RBI with 21.

Junior Cade Climie leads the team in home runs as the lone Cougar with five on the year and despite a lower batting average (.260), does have the second-highest on-base percentage on the squad with at least 50 plate appearances (.448, only behind McGinnis).

Here’s a fun one – Houston has an infielder by the name of Carsten Sabathia III. If that name sounds familiar to anyone, that would be due to his newly-enshrined Hall of Fame father CC Sabathia. Carsten the Third has put up solid numbers in 53 plate appearances, slashing .313/.358/.542 on the year with a pair of homers. Sabathia spent a couple seasons with Georgia Tech prior to transferring to Houston.

Before We See Them

Houston will play the Sam Houston Bearkats this week on Tuesday for a game and a half, as they have not only their scheduled game but have to finish up a game that was postponed the week prior on Wednesday the 12^th. This will be their third and final meeting with the Bearkats in 2025, as the Cougars took game 1 4-3 and had a 9-6 lead in the bottom of the 5^th of the postponed contest.

Final Notes

Certainly, the Knights are happy to be back home in some proper Spring weather, and happier still to be doing so with the first conference series win under their belt.

UCF will look to continue the momentum built from the last couple weeks into the next stretch of games, where they will have just the quick weekend series at home before getting back on the road for the following week.