By: Tobey Schulman
FAU traveled up to Orlando to take on UCF Tuesday night. The second matchup between these two teams this season, FAU looked to get a win back from the Golden Knights, and even the series at 1-1. Compared to many of FAU’s previous games, both teams would only put up a handful of runs combined, and the Owls ultimately fell to the Golden Knights 3-2.
The Owls came ready to swing the bats and got the lead early. Patrick Ward gave the Owls an early 1-0 lead in the second inning, with an RBI single that scored John Schroeder. The Golden Knights would take the lead back in the fifth however, after Andrew Sundean singled to score Lex Boedicker and Matt Prevesk to give UCF a 2-1 lead.
FAU would fight back to tie the game in the sixth. Andrew McKenna would hit a sacrifice fly-out that would score John Schroeder for the second time, to make it 2-2. UCF would come up in the eighth, in a tie ballgame, against Owls shutdown reliever Danny Trehey.
Trehey up until this point, had still not given up a run through over 15 innings pitched. That was until Andrew Sundean came up for the Golden Knights. Sundean would deliver again, this time with a solo home run to give UCF a late 3-2 lead. Sundean’s fourth home run of the year would prove to be the game winning run for the Golden Knights, and would end the Owls five game win streak.
The Owls come out of Orlando with a disappointing loss, but not a terrible one. A one run loss is always better than getting blown out, and the Owls pitching staff held up great. Home runs, solo home runs at that, are going to happen occasionally, but the fact the Owls kept such a good offense limited to three runs can be taken away as a positive.
The Owls look to take some more positives away from this loss. Patrick Ward looked great at the plate and John Schroeder continued to be productive for the Owls offense. A rare run given up for Danny Trehey shouldn’t be much of a concern as well, as he’s been absolutely incredible so far this season.
The Owls will welcome in Charlotte for their first conference series in the American. They’ll look to get some wins back and continue their at home winning streak.