No. 2 Kentucky baseball (41-14, 22-8 SEC) held off Western Michigan (32-22, 19-11 MAC) by a score of 10-8 to advance to the winner’s bracket of the Lexington Regional Friday.
“They had their chances, give them a lot of credit,” Kentucky head coach Nick Mingione said. “They put a lot of pressure on us, but I give our guys a lot of credit, we bent but we didn’t break.”
The Wildcats got started quickly as Dominic Niman worked around a double to pitch a scoreless first and Ryan Waldschmidt reached third base with a steal and a botched pickoff attempt by the Broncos’ starter Brady Miller.
After Devin Burkes drew a walk and stole second, Nick Lopez hit a sacrifice fly to bring home Waldschmidt and give the Bat Cats a 1-0 lead.
After Niman tossed a three-up, three-down second, Nolan McCarthy hit a one-out single and quickly came in to score after James McCoy hit a line drive two-run home run just inside the right field foul pole that extended the lead to three.
Niman continued to roll by working around a walk to toss another scoreless frame and the offense continued as well as Burkes singled and Lopez doubled to kick off the third.
Mitchell Daly reached on a fielding error, which brought home Burkes, and Ryan Nicholson singled to left to score Lopez to add to the lead further.
That wasn’t it for the Wildcats in the inning, though, as McCoy doubled and Grant Smith hit a sacrifice fly to bring home two more Wildcats which extended the lead to 7-0 after three.
The Wildcats kept the momentum in their corner in the fourth as Niman pitched a scoreless inning and Daly doubled to score another run.
It seemed as though the Wildcats were going to cruise right into the second round with a stress-free victory, but the Broncos did not go away quietly.
Niman returned to the mound for the fifth and ran into trouble, walking a batter, surrendering a single and hitting a batter to load the bases.
This led to back-to-back infield singles followed by a walk, which resulted in three runs and ended Niman’s afternoon.
“At the beginning of the game he was filling up the zone really well,” Western Michigan first baseman Cade Sullivan said. “As the innings progressed, we started to see more pitches, get into deeper counts and I think that’s when we started to succeed more.”
Cameron O’Brien relieved Niman and gave up an infield single and a groundout, which plated two more Broncos.
O’Brien struck out the next two batters to end the inning, but when the damage was done, the Wildcat lead was cut to 8-5.
The Wildcats immediately responded on offense as Waldschmidt hit a sacrifice fly and Pitre singled to score two more runs and extend the lead back to five runs.
“They score five then we immediately score two and I thought that was the difference in the game,” Mingione said.
Despite that, Western Michigan stayed poised on offense as Evan Byers took over for Kentucky and gave up a two-out single, which scored a run. Byers then hit Dylan Nevar to load the bases, which ended his day.
Robert Hogan took over and surrendered a double to CJ Richmond, which scored two more runs and cut the Cats’ lead to 10-8 as the Bronco bullpen kept the Wildcat offense in check for the rest of the game, providing an opportunity to complete the improbable comeback.
It wasn’t to be ultimately as Hogan shut them down by pitching a three-up, three-down seventh and worked around a walk to keep the score where it stood in eighth before returning to the mound in the ninth.
Hogan struck out Richmond for the first out before giving up a single, but Daly threw out Michael Maloney for the second out. Hogan then hit and walked the next two batters to load the bases with two outs, but a fly out secured the round one victory for Kentucky.
“Being able to throw every pitch for a strike,” Hogan said regarding his success. “That keeps the hitters off balance and I have an unbelievable defense behind me.”
With the win, Kentucky will play the winner of the other round one matchup between Indiana State and Illinois on Saturday, June 1, with first pitch scheduled for 6 p.m. ET.
