UIC took down Youngstown State, 7-4, in the opening round of the Horizon League Championship Thursday afternoon.
Joshua Figueroa had three hits and knocked in a pair of runs.Â
Fred Gosbeth closed the game with 2 1/3 innings of one-hit relief after
Jacob Key worked out of trouble a couple of times in his six-plus innings.
The Flames struck first with two runs in the bottom of the first, and maintained their lead by answering two Penguin rallies with runs of their own in the next half-inning. Eight starters had at least one hit and five players drove in at least one run each.
The win was UIC's 12
th straight dating back to a regular season series against the Penguins in which the Flames won three out of four at Granderson Stadium.
Consecutive doubles by
Matt Bottcher,
Joshua Figueroa, and
Cole Conn staked the Flames to a 2-0 lead after one. Key minimized the damage in the Youngstown State third, escaping a two-on, none-out situation with a huge strikeout and an inning-ending groundout on a 3-0 count. UIC used small ball to answer in the bottom of the third, turning four singles into two runs.
The Penguins began the sixth inning with a homer and a double, and eventually loaded the bases after scoring two runs, but Key coaxed three shallow popouts to prevent an even bigger inning. The Flames got those two runs back when
Bryan Rosario's sharp grounder to first was ruled an error, enabling
Cory Moore to score and eventually extending the inning for Figueroa's second RBI.
A two-out, run-scoring double in the sixth chased Key. Gosbeth retired the side on a foul popout.Â
Thomas Norton made two sparkling plays at third base in the eighth, and Gosbeth needed just eight pitches in the ninth to secure his seventh save.
The Flames totaled 13 hits and went 4-for-5 in stolen bases. Flames pitchers struck out five, walked just one, and stranded nine runners. Key scattered a season high 11 hits and, pitching with the lead virtually the whole game, let his defense make the plays.
UIC will face the host and top seed Wright State in a winner's bracket game Friday at 1:30 pm (CT). The winner will advance to Saturday's championship round, while the loser will play an elimination game Friday afternoon against No. 4 Milwaukee.
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