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It was a big week for the baseball Kentucky Wildcats, and they didn’t disappoint.
After struggling the previous week, it was crucial that they bounce back with a great showing, and that’s exactly what they did.
Kentucky faced rival Louisville on Tuesday night in front of record setting crowd of 4,798 fans and the Cats took care of business going for their 20th victory of the season. It was a back a forth game right from the first pitch, but eventually, the Cats took control.
The Cardinals took and early 1-0 lead in the top of the 1st but it didn’t last long as Luke Heyer stepped in and hit a 2 RBI double to right center giving the Cats a 2-1 lead.
In the 2nd, Louisville answered the Cats two runs with two runs of their own to reclaim the lead. However, just like they did in the first the Cats once again answered. Tristan Pompey singled up the left side scoring two runs and then after a throwing error by the Louisville third baseman Trey Dawson scored to give the Cats a 5-3 lead.
Louisville would cut it to one in the 4th but the Cats would score one in the 4th and two in the 5th and go on to defeat the Louisville Cardinals 8-5 at the Cliff. Winning pitcher was Carson Coleman (1-0).
The weekend was a 3-game series with the South Carolina Gamecocks which was also at the Cliff.
On Friday night, Kentucky had an offensive outburst as well as a dominating performance from Sean Hjelle on the mound.
The Cats started it off in the 2nd with back to back RBI singles by Trey Dawson and Tristan Pompey followed by another run on a throwing error by the South Carolina catcher to give the Cats an early 3-0 lead.
Dawson recorded another RBI in the 3rd after drawing a walk with the bases loaded to which Pompey once again followed with a 3 RBI double to right extending the Cats lead to 7-0.
Kentucky added another run in the 5th and five runs in the 6th capped off with a grand slam by Troy Squires. Another homerun in the 7th by Luke Heyer would end the scoring as the Cats take game one, 14-1. Winning pitcher was Sean Hjelle (5-2).
Its safe to say that Hjelle enjoys playing the Gamecocks because according to ukathletics.com Hjelle has not given up an earned run against USC in 13 innings of work in two career starts just walking one batter and striking out 14. He had eight strikeouts and no walks in 7 innings of work in this one.
The second game of the series was Saturday night as the Cats were looking to lock up the series victory but unfortunately, they were unable to get the job done.
Kentucky was never really in this one as South Carolina scored first in the 2nd to go up 1-0 but in the 3rd the Gamecocks erupted for 6 runs.
In the bottom of the inning, the Cats scored their lone run of the game on a Trey Dawson solo homerun to make it a 7-1 South Carolina lead. South Carolina would score in the 5th, 6th, and 8th innings to blowout the Cats 15-1 and even up the series.
Sunday was the rubber match for this series and Kentucky got off to a much better start than they did in game two.
In the bottom of the 1st, Tristan Pompey stepped in and homered to right. Troy Squires followed that up with a solo homer of his own to right to give the Cats an early 2-0 lead.
South Carolina plated one run in the third, but Kentucky followed that up by scoring three runs, two due to a wild pitch and one was an RBI single by Pompey to give the Cats a 5-2 lead.
The Gamecocks scored again in the 6th to cut the Kentucky lead down to 5-3 but Luke Heyer hits a 3-run shot to left and Luke Becker follows him with a solo shot to give the Cats a 9-3 lead.
South Carolina would score two more runs but Kentucky would take the game and the series with a final score of 10-5. Winning pitcher was Justin Lewis (6-2).
This week the Cats spend the week on the road as they have a midweek game Wednesday at Western Carolina and then make the trip to Athens for a weekend series against the Georgia Bulldogs and those games can be seen on either the SEC Network or the SEC Network Alternate channel.
Go Cats!