CHICAGO – The UIC baseball team (12-20-1, 7-5 MVC) completed the series sweep Sunday on the reigning Missouri Valley Conference Champions Murray State, securing a 10-5 victory on a sunny, breezy afternoon day at Curtis Granderson Stadium.
The Racers were quick to get ahead with four runs after the first three and a half inning of play, before junior
Thomas Curry secured a one-out walk in the bottom of the fourth. In the next at-bat, senior
Will Flanigan crushed a 1-0 pitch 383 feet over the right field wall for the two-run shot, his second home run of the weekend.
Later in the frame, senior
Colin Husko stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded, sending a shot out to centerfield for the two RBI base hit, scoring redshirt junior
Kale Jensen and freshman
Sean Cody, quickly eliminating Murray State's early lead.
The Flames' bullpen shined throughout the middle innings, keeping the Racers at bay. Murray State attempted to rally in the top of the sixth with the bases loaded and one out when freshman
Aidan Terronez entered the game, getting UIC out of the jam with back-to-back strikeouts against Murray State's Luke Mistone and Kris Hokenson to end the inning.
After the Flames added an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth, senior
Jacob Jakubowski came into the top of the seventh with two runners on when he struck Murray State's Anthony Perritano on three consecutive pitches, soon followed by Curry catching Kainen Jorge attempting to steal third for his 13
th base runner caught stealing on the season.
Jakubowski finished out his outing 1.2 innings pitched, with a strikeout and no hits allowed before being pulled with two outs in the top of the eighth, when sophomore
Bobby Barrera forced the Racer's Connor Chisolm to fly out to right field to end the frame.
The game burst wide open in the bottom of the inning when UIC plated five runs behind RBI singles from Husko and junior
Jake Busson. The Flames final run came from a sacrifice fly off the bat of junior
Ashton Kampa, giving the Flames a six-run lead entering the ninth.
Graduate student
Zack Millsap entered the game to secure the sweep for UIC in the top of the ninth. After striking out the Racer's Charlie Jury to strike out looking, and getting Jorge out on a fielder's choice, Millsap's 3-2 pitch was short ground out to
Jake Busson at third, firing over to Flanigan at first to earn the win.
The entire play-by-play and box score can be found
here.
UP NEXT!
The Flames remain close to home but find themselves back at Rocky and Berenice Miller Park to face-off against Northwestern (13-18-1, 5-10 Big Ten) at 3:30 p.m. (CT). The game will be streamed on B1G+ Network via a paid subscription, and live stats will be available at UICFlames.com.
UIC Careers in Sports Day
Prior to UIC's Kids Day Game on April 24, the Flames will host a Career Day event inside the Flames Athletic Center from 9–11 a.m.
Attendees will have the opportunity to hear from UIC Athletics staff about their roles and the various career paths available in sports.
Due to space limitations, attendance is limited to the first 150 participants. To register, please email
Brian Davis at briand@uic.edu.
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For more information on UIC Athletics and UIC baseball, visit
UICFlames.com. Fans can also follow the Flames on social media through X (
@UIC_Baseball and
@UICFlames) and Instagram (
@uic_baseball and
@uicflames).
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