Kentucky Sports Radio

Photo by UK Athletics

The following post was co-authored by David Mulloy and John Wilmhoff.

After a 21 inning marathon last night, the UK baseball team responded well this afternoon with their backs against the wall. Kentucky extended their season by at least one more day with an 8-1 win over Valparaiso. It was a 0-0 pitchers duel through 4 innings at U.S. Steel Yard, but the Cats finally scratched across a run in the top of the fifth inning to take a 1-0 lead. Valpo, however, added a run of their own to tie the game up in the bottom of the inning and it was 1-1 after 5 complete innings.

The Cats answered right back with a five run 2-out rally in the top of the 6th.  Left fielder Zac Zellers singled to center and was running when J.T. Riddle roped a 1-1 pitch just inside the right-field line 10 feet beyond the infield dirt to score Zellers.  The next Wildcat batter walked and Matt Reida singled to right to score Riddle.  Lead-off batter Austin Cousino drilled a double off the center field wall, two feet shy of a home run, to score McConkey and Zellers and advanced to third on the throw to the plate.  Thomas McCarthy walked in the next at bat and Cousino scored on a double steal when the throw home got away from the catcher.  A runner was tagged out a third for the final out of the inning, but not before the Cats put five runs on the board to take a 6-1 lead.

Starter Jerad Grundy did all that was asked of him as he allowed just one run on five hits with six strikeouts in six innings. Grundy was relieved by Chandler Shepherd who threw three scoreless innings, struck out two, and gave up only two hits. The Cats added insurance runs in both the 8th and 9th innings and rolled on to an 8-1 win over the Crusaders to see another day. The Cats will be back in action tomorrow at 4:00 against the loser of the Purdue vs. Kent State game that will start tonight at 8. Corey Littrell is expected to make the start on the mound tomorrow for the Cats.