Late-game rally stops Cats’ losing streak

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LOUISVILLE — On a cold night in Louisville, the Cats found their bats and possibly their season again.

With only one win under their belt in eight April contests, the Cats faced a Louisville team that had only lost one game in eight April contests. The end result for the Cats (19-16, 4-11 Southeastern Conference) was an 8-7 victory that saw runs scored by one team or the other in all but one inning, and the go-ahead RBI by sophomore right fielder Bryan Rose in the eighth.

“It was good to win. It’s been a little while but the team played awesome tonight,” Rose said. “We just kind of came together and I feel like we can get something going now.”

After jumping out to a quick three-run lead in the first two innings off six hits, the UK bats cooled off, only getting one hit in the next five innings, a solo home run by freshman left fielder Chad Wright well over the right field wall.

Sophomore right fielder Bryan Rose takes a swing during UK’s series against Georgia. Rose had a key double in UK’s win over Louisville. File photo by Adam Wolffbrandt | Staff

The Cardinals (24-10,  8-4 Big East) took their first lead of the game in the seventh inning, 6-4. With the bases loaded and no outs, the Cats turned to freshman Braden Kapteyn to try and close the door. Kapteyn did the job, only allowing one more run to come in, and keeping the Cats only down two. For the game, Kapteyn only allowed one hit in his three innings of work, with four strikeouts and zero walks.

“He’s got great stuff, and tonight he just really shut them down,” Rose said. “When he’s in the strike zone, he’s pretty much unhittable, so I’m really excited for him.”

The young Cats responded to the Cardinals’ seventh inning output with three runs in the eighth, highlighted by a triple from sophomore shortstop Chris Wade. Junior center fielder Keenan Wiley followed Wade with a single RBI of his own and the Cats closed out the inning with another RBI on a double from Rose.

The Cats, who made walk-off home runs a normal routine at the beginning of the year, reverted back to the dramatics on Tuesday night after forfeiting a three-run lead earlier in the game. The resiliency shown by the Cats was something UK head coach Gary Henderson said he was very proud of and was happy to see the Cats come back to.

“For whatever reason, the last couple of weeks (the comebacks) hadn’t happened for us,” Henderson said. “I was really pleased to see it tonight and hopefully we’ll continue forward with it.”

With seven straight losses now a thing of the past, Henderson said the win is huge not only for the team’s morale, but also because it was against Louisville. Rose said the win could be a turning point in the season for the Cats.

“We made some big steps tonight as a team,” Rose said. “We really came together and had a come-from-behind victory, so I’m excited to see what happens next.”