C-USA hitter of the week Beau Taylor looks to lead Knights past Marshall

Beau Taylor has experienced his share of ups and downs throughout his junior season.

The catcher tied the school record by hitting safely in 26 consecutive games, snapping the streak on Feb. 26 against Southeastern Louisiana.

But then Taylor, a career .345 hitter, saw his average fall well below .300 in the following weeks.

Since then, Taylor has boosted it to .326, second-best on the team, and after going 4-for-4 in Sunday's finale against UAB, he was named the Conference USA Hitter of the Week.

"I guess at the beginning of the season the pressure was on me was to try to be as good as I was last year and my freshman year and I guess it kind of put a little weight on me, but I've got it now. I've figured everything out," Taylor said.

Taylor, who said he has been "doing the little things right," credits associate head coach Cliff Godwin with his success.

"In baseball, less is more with hitting; you don't try to do too much," Taylor said. "Just spending time with Coach Godwin and listening to what he has to say has helped me."

After his perfect plate performance on Sunday, the thought of being named the Hitter of the Week hardly crossed his mind. Taylor found out in a text message he received on Monday.

"I was at Josh Siebenaler's funeral and I got a text message from my coach right in the middle of the service," Taylor said.

Siebenaler, who played for UCF from 2008-2009, was Taylor's workout partner when the catcher was a freshman. Though Taylor wasn't able to show it at the time, he's happy he got the award.

"It feels great because my dad puts everything up on the wall that I get, and he loves it," Taylor said.

The junior joined sophomores Darnell Sweeney and D.J. Hicks as C-USA Hitters of the Week for the season; both Taylor and Sweeney earned the honor last season as well. Taylor joked that him and his teammates compete with each other now.

"Darnell and D.J. got it so now Ronnie [Richardson]'s probably going to try to go for it now," Taylor said.

A game after his 4-for-4 performance, Taylor went 3-for-5 at Stetson. The catcher helped lead UCF to a 4-0 week last week and now to five-straight wins.

The Knights swept UAB for the first time in program history and swept a C-USA series for the first time this season. In doing so, UCF guaranteed a spot in the C-USA Championship tournament, which is held from May 25-29.

The last time the Knights made it to the C-USA Championship was in 2009. They lost to both ECU and Tulane.

"It means we're working," Taylor said. "At the beginning of the year, we weren't winning conference; that was the thing. Now since we're winning conference, we can see everything now. We just have to win this week against Marshall … to get to regionals."

UCF could be seeded as high as third or as low as seventh in the field of eight C-USA teams. ECU and Houston are currently tied for third in C-USA with 11-10 records, while Tulane, UCF and Memphis are all 10-11.

"If we didn't make it to conference, this season would be a huge let-down for us, even though we've had a good season," Taylor said. "Not getting to conference would have been horrible."

Projected Pitching Rotation

Brian Adkins, Danny Winkler and Chase Bradford will likely start Thursday, Friday and Saturday, respectively. While Adkins has earned the No. 1 slot, he hasn't gotten a win since April 29. He still has a team-high six wins and the second-best ERA among starters.

Winkler has thrown some of his most impressive outings of the season in the past few weeks. While his record sits at 3-4, he has consistently given UCF a chance to win. He struck out 11 batters in UCF's 5-3 loss to Houston on May 1, and he, along with Nick Cicio, shut out UAB in 10 innings last weekend.

Bradford, who started the season as a reliever, earned his fifth win of the season last week at UAB. Bradford has just one loss on the year.

Notes

-Marshall is the only C-USA team that will not compete for the C-USA Championship.

-UCF has not committed an error in eight straight games.