TicketsCINCINNATI -- The No. 23 Cincinnati baseball team is en route to Texas to take on the Houston Cougars in a series that kicks off seven-straight road games. The series is set for Friday and Saturday night, followed by a Sunday afternoon game.
The Bearcats later head north to Oral Roberts and Kansas State.
Cincinnati is coming off back-to-back ranked series wins, and the WVU one was full of drama. The Bearcats, in securing their second-highest ranked series win ever, rallied from a 13-inning heartbreaker (12 innings Friday, one Saturday) to win Saturday and rally on Sunday. The first win included an outstanding bullpen performance following Logan Knight's injury, then Sunday saw five-straight hits open the eighth en route to a five-run frame.
Cincinnati enters this series 14-5 over its May regular season games under Jordan Bischel, which includes sweeps of BYU (home, 2024) and No. 25 Kansas (away, 2025).
Nate Taylor is fifth all-time at UC with 248 strikeouts. His 87 this year rank third in the Big 12 and are tied for ninth all-time at UC (four away from last season's total). Four of his six career double-digit K games have come this season. He also leads the league with 63.2 IP, pitching into the seventh in five of his last six starts.
The pitching has slowly moved up to third in the Big 12 for ERA. The bullpen, with a league-best 14 saves, came in clutch versus WVU. Freshman Chad Brown relieved Knight after his long injury delay, weathering a fourth-inning storm of a single, walk, error and two wild pitches to throw a scoreless fifth-to-seventh. Adam Buczkowski, UC's leader with 20 appearances, finished with two scoreless innings, including back-to-back bases-loaded Ks to end it.
Brenden Garula, whose ERA was 7.07 prior to Sunday, got back-to-back Ks to evade a bases-loaded jam in the eighth, and after UC scored its five runs, he pitched a perfect ninth.
Quinton Coats enters the weekend tied with Mike Spina (2009) for the school season record of 23 homers. That mark is third nationally and second in the Big 12. He is also fourth in total bases and 10th in RBI.
Jack Natili, who joins Infelise and Derrick Pitts with a team-high 20 multi-hit games, is one of two nationally to have multiple 3-homer games (Utah, at UCF). He also has a five-hit game. He and Taylor are both top-100 MLB prospects by Perfect Game.
Two notable streaks have continued throughout the meat of the season: Ryan Tyranski's 14-game hit streak and Enzo Infelise's 28-straight reaching safely. Five of UC's top-six hitters in the regular lineup are in their first or second year of college. Tyranski has catapulted into UC's OBP leader (.486) and top hitter in league play (.367).
Jackson Smith, UC's leadoff hitter for most of the season, is 12th nationally and second in program history with 21 HBPs. His .412 batting average with RISP is the best of the Bearcats.
Cincinnati is sixth among Power 4 schools with a Big 12-best 96 steals. Last year, it set a program record of 134.