The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB
UCF
UAB Rides Pender's Arm To Game One Victory Saturday
4/3/2010 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
April 3, 2010
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ORLANDO, Fla. -- Senior right-hander Beau Pender pitched the UAB baseball team past UCF, and the Blazer offense scored all of its runs with two outs in a 7-2 victory in the first game of Saturday's doubleheader at Jay Bergman Field.
Pender worked into the ninth and threatened for UAB's first complete game shutout since 2004 before UCF scored two runs to force him from the game after a career-high eight and one-third innings pitched. Reliever Ben Bullard came out of the bullpen to pick up the final two outs as UAB (16-9, 3-2 C-USA) evened the weekend series with UCF (18-11, 2-3 C-USA) at one game apiece.
The teams will conclude their three-game set with the second game of Saturday's day-night doubleheader at 6:30 p.m. ET. As always, fans can follow the action through Gametracker live stats and All-Access streaming video at uabsports.com.
Pender earned his second consecutive win in Saturday's first game, striking out a career-best 10 batters and walking just one. He scattered five hits through the first eight innings until the Knights got to him for four singles in the ninth.
"I always say momentum is only as good as your next starting pitcher, and today Beau was fantastic," UAB head coach Brian Shoop said. "This game was all Beau Pender. He had all three pitches going for strikes, and he really didn't even face many three-ball counts out there."
The Marianna, Fla., product pitched around a pair of two-out singles in the first inning and leadoff doubles in both the fourth and seventh but never really faced serious trouble until the ninth. After the fourth-inning double from Shane Brown, he struck out five of the next six batters, including fanning the side in the fifth.
Luke Stewart's two-RBI double in the first inning put the Blazers on the board, and, despite leaving a total of 14 runners on base, UAB gradually built its lead with single runs of the two-out variety in five of the final eight frames.
Jonathan Merritt's second-inning single drove in one, while a pair of two-out doubles from Ryan Ussery and Jacob German accounted for the third-inning scoring. German later drove another run with a fifth-inning single for his second RBI of the day, and the Blazers tacked on their sixth run of the game on a bases-loaded passed ball in the sixth. Andrew Manning closed the Blazer scoring with an RBI single in the eighth.
UCF starter Nick Cicio took the loss after being charged with the first three UAB runs. Cicio pitched just one and two-thirds innings and was pulled with the bases loaded in the top of the second frame. The Blazers did the rest of their damage against UCF relievers Chase Bradford and Bryan Brown.
Merritt and Jamal Austin finished with three hits each for UAB, which tallied 14 hits as a team, including five doubles. Eight Blazers recorded a hit in the game, but John Frost saw his 10-game hitting streak come to an end.
Chris Taladay and Ryan Breen led UCF with two hits each, while Beau Taylor drove in the two Knight runs in the ninth.
