No. 13 Miami jumped all over UCF early, tacked on more runs late and never looked back to blowout the Knights 19-2 Tuesday night in front of the second-largest crowd to watch a game at Jay Bergman Field.
Miami (8-3) grabbed an 8-1 lead on UCF (7-6) after four innings with some help from five UCF fielding errors, three of which were on dropped fly balls.
In the third, Miami picked up two runs on two UCF errors and another run on an error in the fourth.
"Unfortunately the tone of the game was set early by making a few miscues," UCF head coach Terry Rooney said. "…It was just a tough mental block for us to overcome, the errors and the miscues that we made early in the game, and then unfortunately I think we were just too far behind."
But the errors didn't end there.
Jonathan Griffin booted a ball at first base to allow a Miami runner to score from third in the fifth inning, only to have the ‘Canes tack on two more runs after to take an 11-1 lead.
The errors finally stopped but the runs kept on coming.
Miami added five runs in the seventh following a grand slam by Stephen Perez and an RBI double by Harold Martinez.
Perez was 4 of 6 with 6 RBI from the two hole and Martinez, hitting from the seven spot, collected three hits to help the bottom third of the lineup go 7 of 14 from the plate.
The Hurricanes took advantage UCF's errors and the miscues proved to be too big an obstacle for the Knights to overcome.
Chris Duffy and Darnell Sweeney were the only Knights to cross home.
Duffy pulled a solo shot over the right-field wall to erase the shutout in the bottom half of the fourth —his sixth of the year, matching his total of a year ago —and in the fifth, Sweeney scored from third on a passed ball to make it 11-2.
By game's end, UCF had more errors (6) than hits (5).
"When you sit back and look at it from a baseball standpoint, you can't play teams the magnitude of the University of Miami, and solid, above average baseball teams, and give them runs," Rooney said. "You can't give them bases. You can't give them free things and obviously what Miami did was they took advantage of our errors and they did a tremendous job at that."
Before the game turned into a lopsided affair, Tuesday night's pitching matchup had that feel good story vibe to it.
Starters Brian Adkins of UCF and Steven Ewing of Miami were high school teammates at nearby University High School last year but the storyline faded quickly.
Adkins was pulled after 3.2 innings after surrendering seven hits and eight runs, though only two of those runs were earned.
As for Ewing, he went on to throw six innings, allowing three hits and two earned runs to pick up his second win of the year.
The crowd of 2,546 was what Rooney was looking for with playing a household name like Miami at home, but the outcome wasn't as the Knights losing streak was extended to five games.
"We just need to get some positive momentum, we're clearly a much better ball club than what we've shown the last few days and certainly what we showed tonight," Rooney said. "The kids know we're good. I know we're good. We're just in a little bit of a funk right now."
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