Record Crowd Fills Cliff Hagan Stadium in Season Home Opener

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The largest regular season home crowd in Kentucky history opened up the 50^th and final season of Cliff Hagan Stadium as Xavier held on to defeat the Wildcats 3-2 in 10 innings on Tuesday night.
 
The Musketeers (1-3) scored a pair of runs in the first innings before being shut out over the next eight innings but the No. 8 Cats (4-1) couldn’t capitalize on several late scoring chances in their first defeat of the season. A double with an error that allowed the batter to advance to third and a sacrifice fly proved to be the difference in the extra frame.
 
UK fought back valiantly and tied the game on sophomore designated hitter T.J. Collett’s blast on the deck in right-center field in the sixth inning, but couldn’t push across a run in the bottom of the ninth after loading the bases with one out. Ultimately, the Cats left 11 runners on base in the game.
 
Senior left-hander Brad Schaenzer pitched five innings and freshman right-hander Jimmy Ramsey kept the Cats in the game with 3.1 innings of relief work but it wasn’t enough on an unseasonably warm night in the Commonwealth.
 
The Cats return to the diamond on Friday night to begin a three-game weekend series against Oakland. Junior All-American Sean Hjelle is expected to get the start in the 4 p.m. opener.
 
 
 
SCORING
Top 1st – Conor Grammes doubled into RCF. Joe Gellenbeck walked. Both moved up on a passed ball. Allbry Major singled to RF, scoring both runners. Xavier 2, UK 0.
 
Bottom 3^rd – Trey Dawson singled to start the inning. Tristan Pompey beat out an infield hit, Dawson advanced to third. Ben Aklinski hit SAC fly to LF, scoring Dawson. Xavier 2, UK 1.
 
Bottom 6^th – T.J. Collett homered onto the deck in RCF. UK 2, Xavier 2.
 
Top 10^th – Gellenbeck doubled to RF and advanced to third on an error. Natale Monastra hit a SAC fly to RF, scoring Gellenbeck. Xavier 3, UK 2.
 
 
NOTES

• The crowd of 4,118 is a regular season attendance record for Kentucky baseball.

• Junior OF Tristan Pompey went 2-for-4.

  • Pompey extended his streak of reaching base safely to 42 games.
  • He now has 142 career hits, moving past All-American Sean Coughlin (2006-07) into 32^nd place on UK’s all-time list.

• Sophomore C/1B T.J. Collett went 2-for-5 with a solo home run.

  • Collett’s second home run of the year gives him three extra-base hits among his five total hits.
  • For his career, Collett now counts four of his seven career hits as extra-base hits.

  
 
 
ON DECK
Kentucky returns to The Cliff on Friday, Feb. 23 with a 4 p.m. first pitch to start a three-game series with Oakland. Fans can listen on the UK Sports Network via UKathletics.com and iHeart Radio, as well as on 98.5 FM. The game will air on the SECN+.