A look back at Rooney’s debut

It seemed a pretty fitting end to a wild first season for UCF baseball head coach Terry Rooney and his ballclub.

In their first postseason game against ECU, the Knights gave up a 3-0 lead with a 4-run seventh inning en route to a 6-3 loss.

Trailing 2-0 in their final game against Tulane, the Knights gave up another 4-run inning late in the ball game, forcing their season to come to an end.

Despite growing pains, pitching staff issues and a lot of inconsistencies on the playing field, the Knights improved under Rooney for one of their best seasons in recent history.

Overall

UCF finished the season 22-35 and went 9-15 in Conference USA play, the most wins against conference opponents since joining C-USA. The Knights finished the final 30 games of the season 15-15 with impressive wins against Rice, Stetson and Houston.

They set three different attendance records: in their series against Virginia Commonwealth, their game against Florida and an overall season attendance average.

UCF played one of its toughest schedules in history, with their strength of schedule ranking in the top 50 in the country playing against opponents like LSU, Florida and Rice.

Arguably its biggest win of the season came May 8, when the Knights shut out the No. 2 team in the nation, Rice, 5-0.

It was the second time ever they have beat the No. 2 team in the nation and the first time they shut out a ranked opponent since a game against Clemson in 2000.

Offense

The Knights' bats came alive this season for one of the most successful years at the plate in program history. UCF smacked out a program-record 68 combined home runs by the team this season.

They had the most doubles (123) and highest slugging percentage (.469) since 2001.
Leading the offense was senior Brandon Romans, who hit a team-high 14 home runs after coming into the season with three in his career. He also nearly doubled his career total in RBIs, driving in 49 runs while batting .333.

Shane Brown led the team with a .341 batting average, and freshman catcher Beau Taylor stepped into the starting role and hit .335 with four home runs and 23 RBIs in 164 at bats. He also threw out 67 percent of baserunners.

Vazquez bounced back from injury with a career-high 13 home runs and drove in 42 RBIs.

Pitching

UCF recorded a team ERA of 7.47 and gave up a total of 507 runs on the year. The Knights gave up 723 total hits and an opponent batting average of .341.

Three Knights tied with a team-high four victories, but the most impressive of those guys was Caleb Graham.

Graham finished the season 4-3 with a 5.94 ERA, but he grew into one of the team's better pitchers in the last two months.

In his final four starts of the season, Graham went 3-0 with a 3.08 ERA, including pitching 6.1 shutout innings in the win against No. 2 Rice.

Jordan Rasinski and D.J. Hicks were two freshmen that impressed on the staff, especially late in the season.

Rasinski started to come on late, recording two wins with a 2.38 ERA in his final 11 appearances.

Hicks finished the season 4-5 and was one of the two-way players for the Knights who enjoyed a successful season at the plate.