Feb. 21, 2000
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Leftfielder Aaron McGlone drove in five runs and Andy Green stole three bases to lead the Wildcats past the Navy Midshipmen, 11-2, on Sunday afternoon. The win leaves the Cats at a perfect 7-0 through the first two weekends of the season. In UK’s three wins this weekend, McGlone went 8-for-13 with nine RBI.
Five UK hurlers held the Midshipmen to just two runs despite allowing a season-high 12 hits. Mark Michael (2-0) earned the win with four scoreless innings in relief of starter Rob Corrado. Despite striking out the side in the first, Corrado was shaky in the early going allowing four hits and two runs, walking one and hitting another, in his two innings of work.
McGlone wasted little time getting the Cats on the board as his first inning single drove in leadoff hitter Beau Moore for a 1-0 UK lead. Robert Newton then made it 2-0 with a sac fly to deep left that chased McGlone home.
The Midshipmen (0-2) got to Corrado in the first. The first two batters he faced reached on a walk and a single, respectively. After striking out the third hitter, Navy first baseman Mark Zematis ricocheted a ball off the top of the right field wall to cut the UK lead in half. After another strikeout, a chopper down the third base line that went for a hit allowed Navy to tie the game at 2-2.
Those first inning tallies turned out to be all the Middies could muster as Michael, Josh Paxton, Austin Madison and Breck Price shut them out over the final seven innings. With one strikeout in a perfect ninth inning by Price, the senior closer has struck out six of the nine batters he has faced in 2-2/3 innings this season. Price has allowed no hits and just one walk.
The Cats scored the eventual game-winning run in the third inning without the benefit of a hit. With one out, Green walked and stole second. Green was moving on the pitch again when McGlone grounded out to second. With the play being close at first, Green caught the first baseman Zemantis flat-footed and was able to hustle into home. UK’s offensive sparkplug thus far this season, Green is hitting .385 with a .615 on base percentage in 2000 while scoring a team-high 11 runs.
Kentucky took advantage of seven walks and three hit batters by the Navy pitchers and six errors by the Navy defense to score 11 runs and win despite being out-hit 12-to-11. UK is now 2-0 this year when getting out-hit by its opponent. The teams combined to leave 27 runners on base.
With UK’s 7-0 start, the 2000 Cats have bettered the program’s best start of the 1990s when they won their first six games of 1991. The last time the Cats won their first seven games to start a season was in 1987 when they won eight consecutive, the most wins to start a season by any UK team under Keith Madison. Kentucky’s longest overall winning streak during the 22-year Madison era came in 1992 when the Cats won 13-straight games after starting the year 9-4.
The Cats will be attempting to the start of the ’87 UK team when they play again next Friday, the first of their final three road games of the month before opening up March at home against Dayton. The Cats will be traveling to Birmingham for a pair of games Friday against Alabama-Birmingham and Saturday against Eastern Illinois before coming back north to play Belmont in Nashville on Sunday.
