Kentucky baseball (7-1) held on despite Hofstra (3-5) sticking around until the final out to take game one by a score of 7-5.
“Something unique about our wins lately is we haven’t won the same way,” Luke Lawrence said. “We had a blowout win, then one coming from behind and then this one was kind of an ugly one.”
Nic McCay’s first home outing was defined by limiting the damage in a few troublesome innings.
The game started off with both teams tossing scoreless innings as McCay tossed a three-up, three-down and the Cats stranded Cole Hage.
The first jam of the game for McCay was in the second after he gave up a leadoff and hit a batter. It seemed the righty was going to escape the jam after back-to-back strikeouts, but Luke Masiuk singled to give the Pride a 1-0 lead.
The run that McCay gave up in the second was his first earned run allowed at Kentucky, which broke a streak of 12 innings.
Lawrence delivered in his second at-bat as he tied the game in the bottom of the third when he hit a ball into the raging winds that landed in the Kentucky bullpen for a home run.
The Cats used some trickery to take the lead in the third with runners on the corners as Tyler Bell fell to distract the pitcher and allow Carson Hansen to steal home and steal a 2-1 lead for Kentucky.
The lead was short lived as McCay found himself in another jam after two walks and a throwing error loaded the bases.
Patrick Herrera bobbled a ball at third that allowed Hofstra to plate a run and tie the game at 2-2.
McCay worked his way out of this jam by striking out Michael Brown and rolling a groundball to end the frame.
“That’s a good thing that he could have that outing and still go four and a third and only give up one earned run,” Head Coach Nick Mingione said. “Yeah, definitely wasn’t his best outing, but he got a lot of outs for us.”
The Bat Cats manufactured a run in the fifth after Ethan Hindle was hit by a pitch and stole second. Lawrence came through again by swapping places with Hindle and hitting a double down the left field line that scored him.
Hage brought home another run for the Cats in the fifth on a groundout that scored Lawrence.
The next runs for the Cats came in the seventh when Hage peppered a double into left centerfield that scored Shaun Montoya and Griffin Cameron.
Simon Gregersen came on in the eighth after Evan Byers and Jackson Nove threw a combined 2.2 scoreless innings.
Gregersen worked around a walk to pitch a scoreless eighth and returned to the mound to try and finish out the game after Dylan Koontz extended the Cats’ lead to 7-2 with a double that scored Herrera.
Things started getting away from Gregersen quickly when he surrendered a double, single and a triple that plated two runs. The pressure only increased after another single scored another run for Hofstra and bring the tying run to the plate.
Ultimately, Gregersen got a flyout and two strikeouts to escape the jam and secure the game one win.
“That’s the experience that guy has, he’s been in that situation a lot,” Mingione said. “He bent, but he didn’t break and did what he could to close the game out and to finish it off for us.”
Following the win, the Bat Cats will look to take the series in game two against Hofstra on Saturday, March 1, with first pitch set for 1 p.m. ET.
