Kentucky Baseball outlasts No. 1 Tennessee in 13 innings
David v. Goliath. The Miracle on Ice. Kentucky Baseball in 2022. The only commonality between these stories is that they ended up in victories for the little guy.
Alonzo Rubalcaba sent the BBN home happy on Thursday night, dropping a walk-off single in to left field to defeat the No. 1 ranked Tennesee Volunteers by a score of 3-2 after 13 innings of action.
Hometown kid struggles, but relief saves the day
Head Coach Nick Mingione turned to Knoxville native Ryan Hagenow to take on the Vols. The sophomore struggled on the bump once again, marking his third straight appearance with less than three innings pitched.
The righty only lasted 2.1 innings on Thursday, allowing four hits and walking six in his short stint. The umpire wasn’t exactly giving him favorable calls, but the lack of control in the rain was worrisome. Things were looking like they were about to go from bad to worst when Hagenow loaded the bases in the second with only one out.
“He made pitches when he had to and kept us in this game.” Mingione said.
Luckily, he was saved by Wyatt Hudepohl, who gave up one run while limiting the damage. Hagenow finished with only one run earned, but it wasn’t an ideal start against his hometown team.
Hudephol ran into a little trouble in the fifth before Daniel Harper came in and shut Tennessee down completely. Harper, the fifth-year pitcher, was good for 2.2 innings of hitless ball, fanning five in the process as he kept the game tied.
Tyler Guilfoil came in next and did much of the same. The Lexington native went six innings of scoreless ball to keep the game alive in extras.
“Tyler has been great for us all year long. Our team is extremely confident when he’s in there and he’s been like that all year,” Mingione added.
Bats battle against best in SEC
Given the offense — or lack there of — this season, I don’t think anybody was coming into this series expecting the Wildcat bats to pop off. The only hope would be to catch some breaks and get lucky on some bad pitches.
Overall the Kentucky offense struggled again, but they were able to steal a couple off of Chase Burns on Thursday early, which proved to be the difference. The true freshman Burns is in the midst of a legendary initial campaign for the Vols. Coming into the game, he had only given up 13 runs on the year with nearly 60 innings pitched, good for a 2.09 ERA
He was up to his usual tricks to start the night, blanking the ‘Cats through four frames. But Kentucky caught up to him with a pair of solo shots off the bats of Oraj Anu and Hunter Jump to tie the game up at two apiece. It was the second home run of the year for Anu, who has dealt with injuries throughout the entire season.
For a second, Kentucky thought they stole this game away. Jump seemingly demolished a 103 mph fastball from Ben Joyce in the 10th until it died in the dead of the night, falling at the warning track. But regardless, Rubalcaba was able to seal the win for the ‘Cats in the bottom of the 13th.
“Obviously when you’re in a game like that and it’s tied, you’re hanging on to every pitch,” Mingione said after the win. “I was just so proud of our team and the way they kept fighting.”
Game two of the weekend set is slated for Friday night at 6:30 p.m. EST. It will be shown on the SEC Network+.
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