TicketsFeb. 10, 2007
BOCA RATON, Fla.---Florida Atlantic's Mike McKenna hit a 12th inning walk-off home run leading the Owls to a wild 14-13 win over Cincinnati in a non-conference thriller on Saturday afternoon at FAU Stadium. The heartbreaking setback was the second one-run decision UC has dropped in two days.
UC rallied from an 8-2 deficit, but couldn't hold on to a 13-8 eighth inning lead as the Owls came back to take their fifth straight win. The Bearcats plated a total of 11 runs in the seventh and eighth innings, only to see the Owls score five of their own in the last two frames to force bonus baseball.
Josh Harrison's strong first weekend continued as he homered for the second consecutive day, while driving in five runs and extending his hitting streak to 17 games. Brian Szarmach added his second straight two-hit day with a double and a triple, as the duo led a 13-hit Cincinnati attack.
For the second straight game, UC spotted the Owls an early advantage as the home team led 3-0 after three innings of play. Cincinnati got its first runs of the day in the fourth as Adam Yeager and Szarmach reached on back-to-back doubles. Kyle Rapp then plated the latter with a single up the middle to draw the Bearcats within a run.
Florida Atlantic pulled to its 8-2 advantage with five runs over the next three innings. Alex Silversmith delivered a fourth inning homer and McKenna had an RBI knock in both the fifth and sixth innings to highlight the scoring for FAU.
Cincinnati finally broke through against FAU starter Brandon Cooney and three relievers in the seventh, sending 11 men to the plate in a six-run inning. Harrison delivered the first big blow, taking advantage of an Owl error with a two-run single up the middle. With two out, the Bearcats kept the scoring going, getting an RBI single by Yeager and a triple by Szarmach that bounced off the top of the wall in left center field.
One inning later, Cincinnati sent nine hitters to the plate in scoring five runs to go in front, 13-8. With the score knotted at eighth, Harrison came to the plate with two men on and one out and came up huge, taking FAU reliever Brett Cannon deep for the second day in a row, with a three-run blast to right. After consecutive walks and then a strikeout, Ryan Baker gave Cincinnati some breathing room, ripping a two-run double into the left field corner to push the Bearcat lead to five.
Lost in the comeback in the eighth was the injury sustained by freshman Michael Earley. In making the seventh and eighth inning comebacks, UC head coach Brian Cleary exhausted his supply of position players on the bench, leaving the Bearcats shorthanded when Earley went down. Ace reliever A.J. Upton was forced to play first base, while fellow hurler Michael Hill also had to bat.
The Owls trimmed the Bearcat lead to three in the eighth as Robbie Widlansky took a Hill offering over the left center field wall for a two-run homer. Bad fortune continued the Bearcats way in the ninth as Bomback drew a bases loaded walk that made the score 13-11. That brought Widlansky up again and he came up big, ripping a two-run single to right to tie the score.
In the final three innings, the Bearcats had chances to go in front once again, leaving a man on in the 11th and two more in the 12th. That set the stage for McKenna's heroics, as he led off the bottom of the 12th with a long ball to right off of Upton.
Widlansky and McKenna were two of the offensive heroes for the Owls, with the former recording three hits and five RBI. The latter added four hits and four RBI, while Daniel Bomback had four runs scored and four RBI. Joel Schmal was the last of eight pitchers used by FAU, picking up his first win of the year with three shutout innings of work.
The two teams will wrap up the series with a 1 p.m. start on Sunday. Junior Mike Obradovich will get the ball for Florida Atlantic, while Cincinnati's starter is still to be announced.