Wildcats tamed in 13-0 win

The Knights smashed eight doubles and two triples in a 13-0 blowout at Bethune-Cookman on Tuesday night.

UCF (4-0) won the first of a four-game road trip with 18 hits and no fielding errors.

"Our hitters have just done a tremendous job of working each at-bat one bat at a time and obviously they're going to the plate with an extreme amount of confidence right now," said head coach Terry Rooney.

The Knights filled the second inning with doubles. Catcher Beau Taylor opened up a four-run second inning with a double, which extended his hit-streak to 25 consecutive games. Taylor is one game away from tying the longest hitting streak in UCF history, set by Mike Myers in 2001.

Jonathan Griffin and Ryan Breen also doubled in the second, each bringing in a run. Both Griffin and Breen doubled later in the game again; Griffin in the third inning and Breen in the sixth. Griffin finished the game with two hits, two runs and one RBI. Breen had three hits, one run and four RBIs.

Shortstop Darnell Sweeney was the next Knight to double, with a hit down the left-field line in the fourth inning. Sweeney tripled on his next at-bat in the sixth inning, bringing in two runs for the Knights. Taylor singled after both of Sweeney's extra-base hits to bring him in. Sweeney had two runs off of four hits and three RBIs in the game.

Center fielder Ronnie Richardson hit the other triple, this one in the seventh inning. He scored on a Sweeney single. Richardson scored two runs off of two hits.

Two consecutive doubles in the eighth inning brought in the final run of the game. Derek Luciano doubled with two outs and Erik Hempe followed up with a ground-rule double.

Seven UCF pitchers gave up only two hits. Sophomore Brian Adkins got the start and the win and struck out five of the 10 batters he faced in his three innings.

"We predetermined that [Adkins] would only go a few innings tonight," Rooney said. "My plan was to use a lot of different pitchers. You know, Brian is a guy that started a lot of our midweek games last year and obviously at the end of the year pitched our last game in conference against Tulane so he has continued to really develop and obviously I'm hoping that this outing will kind of catapult into that next outing and continue that confidence."

Alex Besaw, Ben Lively, Johnny Sedlock, Brennan Dobbins, Bryan Brown and Trevor Berry each pitched an inning and together struck out six batters. Lively, a freshman, struck out two in his first-ever UCF appearance.

The last time that the Knights gave up as few as two hits was April 13, 2008, when Memphis had only two hits against UCF. The last time UCF shut out an opponent was May 8, 2009, when the Knights blanked No. 2 Rice.

Wildcats freshman pitcher Montana Durapau struck out the first two batters and picked off a runner in the first inning but went on to give up six runs off of seven hits and was credited with the loss.

The Bethune-Cookman pitching staff gave up 18 hits but struck out 10. The Knights walked three.

The Knights travel to Mobile, Ala., for the South Alabama Classic on Friday. The Knights will face South Alabama on Friday, Southeastern Louisiana on Saturday and No. 29 Alabama on Sunday.