East Carolina Hands UCF Baseball 10-2 Loss Saturday

March 29, 2008

ORLANDO, Fla. (www.ucfathletics.com) - East Carolina amassed 21 hits en route to defeating the No. 19 UCF baseball team, 10-2, Saturday at Jay Bergman Field. It was just the second home loss of 2008 for the Knights, who dropped to 22-5 on the year and 2-3 in Conference USA play.

A crowd of 1,490 was on hand for game two of the series, which was the 10th largest attended game since the stadium opened in 2001. They witnessed the Pirates stretch their record to 17-7 overall (2-3 C-USA), with ECU starter Seth Maness going 7.0 solid innings with five strikeouts. Sophomore Shane Brown was able to crush his fourth homer of the year, though, a solo shot in the sixth inning.

Knight starter Kyle Sweat easily got the first two outs by getting ahead of hitters in the top of the first, but a single and stolen base put Stephen Batts at second and Corey Kemp drove him in on a double for a 1-0 ECU lead. Even though Sweat continued to get to two-strike counts in the second inning, the Pirates plated three more runs to boost its advantage to 4-0.

The Pirate bats went back to work in the fourth, building it to 6-0 on back-to-back two-out RBI doubles by Batts and Kemp, then scored three against the UCF bullpen in the fifth and one in the sixth to reach double figures. That was when Brown ruined the shutout bid by hammering a 2-1 offering from Mannes over left-field wall in the bottom of the sixth. Junior Brandon Romans drove in UCF's second run in the seventh by bringing in classmate Eric Kallstrom, who opened the inning with a double, on a RBI single up the middle.

UCF wraps up its three-game series against East Carolina with a 1 p.m. showdown on Sunday.

Season tickets as well as single-game tickets to check out UCF baseball this year are currently available by contacting the UCF Ticket Office at 407-823-1000, or by going online at www.ucfathletics.com, the official site for UCF varsity sports. Also check out UCFPhotos.com, the exclusive fan source for UCF action sports pictures.

Game Notes
East Carolina - 17-7 Overall, 2-3 Conference USA
No. 19 UCF - 22-5 Overall, 2-3 Conference USA
WP: Seth Maness (5-0), 7.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 K
LP: Kyle Sweat (3-1), 3.2 IP, 10 H, 6 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 3 K
- UCF's largest crowd last year was 1,177 against Harvard. Meanwhile it was the first time the Knights had an attendance of over 1,400 since 1,729 came out to see UCF battle Florida in 2006.
- The Knights are now 19-2 at Jay Bergman Field.
- The 21 hits by ECU were the most given up by UCF this season.
- Dwayne Bailey stole his team-leading 14th base of the season.
- Ryan Richardson's hitting streak came to an end at 13 games.
- Brian Griggs pitched 2.1 innings of relief and struck out five in the process.
- Paul Cinder and Matt Manning both pitched a scoreless inning in relief.
- Eric Kallstrom went 2-for-4 with a run scored.