Instead of wreaking havoc on the basketball court, March Madness almost broke through on the baseball diamond.

On a frigid day at Cliff Hagan Stadium, the UK baseball team (5-2) came out equally cold, falling behind four runs in the first inning and a half before a big seventh inning gave the Cats a 12-6 victory over Western Michigan.

“It was a hard game for a few reasons,” UK head coach Gary Henderson said. “We didn’t get very good starting pitching, we made some mistakes on defense and clearly we didn’t have our best concentration at the plate early in the game.”

After six innings of play, the Broncos still had the lead at 5-4. For the Cats however, the seventh inning was the turning point in a game that could have gone horribly wrong.

“We needed guys on base. I feel like we struggled all night at getting guys on base,” junior center fielder Keenan Wiley said. “When we did get guys on base it seemed like we already had a couple outs. We needed to get guys on base early in the inning, create the pressure and get some runs.”

The Broncos began the inning with a bruising hit that banked off the left field wall. UK junior left fielder Troy Frazier took the ball off one bounce and sent a perfect throw to second base gunning the batter down. Frazier wasn’t done in the seventh inning though; not by a long shot.

After a Broncos hit down the left field line, Frazier threw another strike, this time down the line to his relay man, sophomore shortstop Chris Wade, who then delivered a perfect throw to catcher Marcus Nidiffer.

“I was really pleased with Troy’s performance,” Henderson said. “He did a nice job in left field for us, he stayed with it. The kid (from Western Michigan) obviously was in a home run trot and the ball didn’t leave the yard and we took advantage of that. That was a huge part of the game for us, really a turning point for the game.”

Western Michigan scored a run in the inning, but for UK things could have been worse. Wiley pointed out that, in a game where the Cats struggled to get runs on the board and keep it close, the defensive plays by Frazier in the seventh were huge for the Cats to stay in it.

“Any big play like that where you can throw someone out helps your team tremendously, it can change the momentum” Frazier said. “He put a good swing on it and had a good hit and we turned it into an out, that’s a big turn around.”

Frazier carried his hot hand on defense up to the plate with a two-run home run that sailed just to the right of the batter’s eye in center field. The hit broke Frazier’s bat, and Western Michigan’s will. With the score tied, the UK bats heated up in a hurry and finished the inning scoring eight runs, aided by three Broncos errors.

“I was pleased that our kids hung with the game even though we were behind until the bottom of the seventh,” Henderson said. “That was the first time we’ve come from behind and won a ball game this year, so I thought that part was really good.”

Tuesday night’s game against Western Michigan was the third and series finale. The series was originally planned to run four games, but after a cancellation due to weather on Saturday and Monday, the final game was played Tuesday night. The Cats had their way with Western Michigan in their previous two meetings (16-5 and 15-4 respectively), and believe playing from behind in a close game, and getting the victory, will be beneficial in the long run.

“We showed that we can play from behind and still be confident and come away with a victory,” Frazier said. “It was a good series for us. We got three wins and we’re looking forward to tomorrow and playing Eastern Kentucky.”