TicketsSTARKVILLE, Miss. – The No. 2 seed Cincinnati baseball team tied a season-best six home runs as it topped No. 3 seed Louisiana, 12-2, in its NCAA Starkville Regional opener Friday night at Dudy Noble Field. With the win, the Bearcats, now 38-20 on the season, will take on top-seeded Mississippi State in a winners’ bracket matchup at 9 p.m. ET Saturday.
Junior Nathan Taylor overcame a rocky start and picked up his defense after a pair of early errors, allowing one unearned run on two hits and four walks with three strikeouts to pick up the win, the 22nd of his career to break Dan Osterbrock’s record set in 2008. Junior backstop Jack Natili went 4-for-5 with a double and three home runs, his third three-home run game of the year. He drove in five and scored four runs.
“I’m really proud of our guys tonight,” Cincinnati head coach Jordan Bischel said. “I can't say enough good things about Coach (Matt) Deggs and their team. Our guys stayed the course. I think the thing that made me really proud of our guys tonight was, quite frankly, we didn't play great baseball the first three innings, but we talked about it coming in that it's not going to be easy, and you got to rise the challenge a little bit, and I think Nate (Taylor) was a perfect example of that tonight. I don't think he's going to sit here and tell you it was his best performance ever. He competes, he finds a way, and obviously the defense picked him up.”
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The Bearcats fell behind 1-0 early on the unearned run against Taylor. With one down, the right-hander issued a free pass to Noah Lewis before a Lee Amedee single through the right side got under the glove of Bearcats’ right fielder Ryan Tyranski, plating Lewis and moving Amedee to third. But Taylor buckled down, getting a force out at the plate on a ground ball to shortstop Charlie Niehaus with the infield in before getting Drew Markle to bounce out to second to end the frame.
Cincinnati was able to get to Louisiana right-hander Cody Brasch in the bottom of the second when Natili evened the score with a lined shot down the left-field line for his 17th home run of the year.
Taylor, who was able to get to two strikes on 12 of the first 13 he faced but was constantly battling the Ragin’ Cajuns throughout his outing, ran into a trouble again in the fourth. Walks to Colt Brown and Markle put runners on first and second with nobody out. Donovan LaSalle lifted a fly ball to the track in deep center, where Derrick Pitts caught the ball on the track, spun and fired a one-hop strike to second to get a tagging Markle for the double play. Taylor then escaped after getting Louisiana designated hitter Steven Spalitta to ground out to short.
The Bearcats’ followed with a five-spot after two outs were recorded by Brasch in the bottom of the frame. After Quinton Coats and Pitts were retired to start the inning, Natili doubled down the left-field line before a 432-foot shot off the batters’ eye in center by Enzo Infelise on an 0-2 pitch gave Cincinnati the lead. Cal Sefcik followed with a single to right-center before a Christian Mitchelle triple into the gap in right-center drove him home and Niehaus capped the inning with a two-run home run to left to make it a 6-1 contest.
After Taylor fanned a pair in a 12-pitch top of the fifth, Tyranski led off the bottom of the inning when he launched a solo shot to right, his seventh of the year, to chase Brasch and push the lead to 7-1. Garret Carter came on in relief for Louisiana, issuing a walk to Coats before fanning Pitts for the first out of the inning. But Natili followed with a mammoth blast to left, his second long ball of the night, to tack on two more.
Taylor finished off his night with a scoreless sixth, pushing his record to 7-3 with the win, before Coats tied the Bearcats’ single-season RBI record with his 79th of the year to make it 10-1. Natili capped off his night with a two-run long ball to left in the bottom of the eighth and Dominic Mauro, Adam Brouwer and Joel Pineiro finished off the final three frames for the win.
For the game, all nine Bearcats’ starters reached base safely, eight of nine recorded a base hit and Infelise, Mitchelle and Niehaus joined Natili with multi-hit contests, notching two hits apiece.