The Miami Hurricanes baseball team defeated the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles 12-4 at Mark Light Field in Coral Gables, maintaining their perfect 8-0 record in midweek matchups this season. The Hurricanes improved to 22-7 overall and 4-5 in ACC play with the victory. Miami scored 12 runs on 14 hits in the dominant performance.
Derek Williams led the offensive surge with a three-run homer to deep left field in the third inning, scoring Jake Ogden and Alex Sosa to push the lead to 4-1. Williams has been batting .415 with 44 hits, 11 doubles, and a team-high 11 home runs while driving in 47 runs and posting an .830 slugging percentage and 1.338 OPS. The senior has also caught fire at the plate recently, riding a nine-game hitting streak.
Jake Ogden finished perfect at the plate, going 4-for-4 with four runs scored in the victory. “Ogden started the season slowly, batting .256, but once he entered the Clemson series, a flip had switched,” according to the game analysis. Ogden brought home Vance Sheahan with an RBI single in the fifth inning that made it 5-3, then Daniel Cuvet worked a walk to double the lead to 6-3.
Miami really broke things open in the sixth inning with a four-run surge to pull away from the Eagles. Fabio Peralta got the inning started with a single to shallow left, followed by an Ogden infield single that moved him into scoring position. Sosa delivered the big swing, ripping a two-run double down the right field line to score Peralta and Ogden, then Brylan West launched a two-run homer to deep left field to make the score 10-3.
The Hurricanes have now won eight of their last nine games while dealing with rotation issues on the mound. TJ Coats, Jake Dorn, freshman Lonzo Drummond, and Tate DeRias all took the mound during the game. Jake Dorn earned the win with three scoreless innings, allowing just two hits and striking out four in relief, improving to 3-0 on the season.
Miami’s early offensive production has been a consistent trend this season, as the Hurricanes have now scored in the opening frame in 14 of their last 17 games. The team is 17-4 when scoring first in a game this season. Williams brought home Ogden with an RBI groundout in the first inning to make it 1-0, continuing this successful formula.
Florida Gulf Coast managed to chip away with some offensive production of their own during the contest. The Eagles answered in the second inning, capitalizing on a wild pitch to even the score at 1-1. FGCU cut into the deficit in the fourth with a two-run home run from Sebastian Lippman to make it a one-run game at 4-3, and added another run in the top of the ninth inning.
Head coach J.D. Aretaga pulled the plug on the potential run-rule situation and threw in the bench players, who almost completed the mercy rule themselves. Cuvet tallied another run for Miami in the bottom of the seventh off a line drive double down the right field line to push Miami further ahead, 12-3. Daniel Cuvet and Alex Sosa combined for four RBIs in the victory, with both players recording bases-clearing doubles during the offensive onslaught.
The Hurricanes now turn their focus to a weekend ACC matchup against Virginia Tech, with the three-game series set to begin Friday at 7 p.m. at Mark Light Field.