Tulane drops rubber game at UCF, 8-6

ORLANDO – The Tulane University Baseball team (27-17-1, 9-6) suffered a 6-8 loss to UCF (26-17, 10-5) on Sunday afternoon inside John Euliano Park in Orlando, Florida.

This is the third series loss of the season and second conference series loss for the Wave, moving them out of the first-place spot in the AAC.

Tulane outhit UCF 13-12 with Bennett Lee, Luis Aviles, Trevor Minder and Jared Hart all having multi-hit outings. The Wave was unable to capitalize, however, leaving 15 on base.

Freshmen right-hander Michael Massey was on the bump for Tulane and struck out four in 3.0 innings of work. Massey allowed four earned runs on seven hits in just his third loss of the season.

Going scoreless through the first two frames, UCF would bag four runs on four hits to jump out to a 4-0 lead in the bottom of the third. Tulane would respond in the next frame with a single from each Lee, Aviles and Marget that would get two runners across home plate cutting the lead to two.

The Knights would extend the lead back out with a three-run homerun to go up 7-2 in the bottom of the fourth.

Jackson Linn would open the fifth inning with a single, followed by a Minder triple to score. Hart would sneak one through the right side and score Minder to bring the score to 7-4.

UCF would score one in the seventh, extending the lead 8-4.

In the final frame, Hart singled one to center and advanced to second on a passed ball. Gavin Schulz came in as a pinch hitter and drove a double down the right foul line scoring Hart. With his third hit of the game, Lee scored Schulz to bring the score to 6-8 with two outs. Lee would advance to second with Aviles getting hit by a pitch to put the winning run on base for Tulane, but they would get left on with Tulane falling 6-8.

UP NEXT: Tulane will head home to take on the University of New Orleans on Tuesday with the Pelican Cup on the line. First pitch is set for 6:30.