LEXINGTON ? The Kentucky baseball team pounded out 12 hits en route to an easy 15-4 win over Toledo on Saturday afternoon at Cliff Hagan Stadium.
The Wildcats won for the seventh straight outing to improve to 8-1 on the year. Kentucky is off to its best start since the 2000 season and its win streak longest since that year. Toledo fell to 1-4 on the y ear. The two teams wrap up a three-game set Sunday at 1 p.m.
?We?re playing really well right now and everybody is contributing,? said Kentucky head coach John Cohen. ?It seems like each game we have a couple new players step up and provide us with a spark.?
On Saturday it was junior Billy Grace (Granger, Ind./Penn HS) and senior Matt Fritts (Louisville, Ky./Male HS) Grace went 3-for-3 with a single, double and home run. He scored five times and drove in four, accounting for more than half of Kentucky?s runs.
Fritts drove in a career-high four runs while finishing 2-for-5.
?Billy had a great day at the plate,? Cohen said. ?He?s a guy we?re counting on this year to hit in the heart of our order and produce. He certainly did that today.?
Kentucky opened slow and led just 1-0 after two innings. However, the Wildcats broke loose in the third with five runs. They loaded the bases with one out and worked three straight run-scoring walks before a two-out two-run single by Fritts.
In the fourth, the Wildcats used three singles, two walks and a hit batsman to tack on four more runs for a 10-1 lead. Two innings later, Kentucky added three runs before Steve Deaton (Lexington, Ky./Dunbar HS) and Grace rounded out the team scoring with solo home runs in the seventh.
Toledo managed just one run on six hits through the first eight innings against starter Scott Green (Louisville, Ky./Male HS) and reliever Aaron Tennyson (Milan, Mich/Milan HS), who got the win to improve to 3-0 on the year. Tennyson went six innings and allowed one run on five hits.
?I thought Aaron came in and threw very well. He made one mistake, but settled down and pitched great,? Cohen said.
The Rockets added three runs in the ninth, two of which came on a two-out double, for the final margin.
