Lesson Learned Leads to Late Rally for Baseball Cats
In its 2018 home opener, the Kentucky baseball team suffered a loss for the first time this season, falling to Xavier 3-2 last Tuesday night at Cliff Hagan Stadium. And while the game ended up in the loss column, it provided a powerful teaching tool for the UK staff.
Kentucky showed that it did learn an important lesson in that game on this Tuesday night, when the Wildcats rallied from a three-run, ninth inning deficit to beat Western Kentucky 4-3 at the Cliff. Head coach Nick Mingione knows how valuable last week’s loss is.
“Last Tuesday, we were in a very similar situation, we had a chance to tie if not take the lead and win the baseball game and we tried to do too much,” Mingione said. “That did not happen tonight in the ninth. One thing we’ve always said is that we’ve created a learning environment. And for our players to be in very similar situation and to do basically the total opposite of what we did a week ago today, I’m so proud of them.”
Heading into the ninth inning, Kentucky had just three hits in the game and had failed to score. With one out, Ryan Johnson homered to right field to get the Cats on the board, cutting the Toppers’ lead to 3-1. After a Luke Heyer infield single, Ryan Shinn flied out to left, leaving the Cats with just one out remaining.
But the lesson learned against Xavier meant that Kentucky would not panic in a difficult position. Instead, the Cats were patient at the plate, taking advantage of what was given to them. Shortstop Trey Dawson ripped a double to left-center field, and suddenly, the Cats had the tying run in scoring position.
Senior catcher Troy Squires, facing an 0-2 count, ripped a single up the middle, plating both Heyer and Dawson, tying the game at 3-3.
But the Cats were not done. Ben Aklinski reached on an error by WKU third baseman Sam McElreath, giving Kentucky runners at first and second.
Freshman Cam Hill was brought on to pinch run for Squires. Both Hill and Aklinski moved up a base on a wild pitch by WKU reliever Ryan Thurston. Then, Hill scampered home on a passed ball, scoring the winning run and completing a seemingly impossible ninth-inning comeback.
Mingione knew that his team needed a win like Tuesday’s victory.
“We went all last season and didn’t have a walk-off win,” Mingione said. “I told (Coach Todd Guilliams) ‘I want a walk-off for these guys so bad.’ They need to know. You have to be able to experience it because we’re going to be in that situation again. We’re going to be down going into the ninth and we’re going to have to do something to get us a win. And that fact that we’ve been there and done it is good. Our team needed that.”
And it might not have happened if the Wildcats had not learned from their shortcomings one week ago.
