Mateo Gray delivers dominant Friday night start as No. 21 UCF bounces back against Cincinnati
No. 21 UCF badly needed a tone-setter Friday night, and Mateo Gray gave the Knights exactly that.
With UCF trying to halt a four-game losing streak and adjust to life without injured Friday night starter Braden Smith, Gray turned in the best start of his young season, carrying the Knights to a 7-1 win over Cincinnati in the opener of a Big 12 series at John Euliano Park. Gray worked 7.2 innings, allowed just four hits and one run, walked one and struck out a career-high nine as UCF improved to 21-13 overall and 11-5 in Big 12 play. Cincinnati dropped to 25-15 and 6-10 in league play.
The Knights entered the weekend on a frustrating stretch after being swept at Kansas and then dropping a 5-4 extra-inning midweek game to Jacksonville, but Gray made sure there was little carryover from any of that. He filled the zone early, mixed pitches all night and gave UCF the kind of stabilizing outing it desperately needed.
“That was an elite Friday night start,” UCF head coach Rich Wallace said. “You’re talking about fastball, two different fastballs in there with command of it, a curveball, a slider, a cutter, a change-up, and just absolutely executing pitches all night. That’s one of the most elite Friday night starts I’ve seen in a long time.”
Gray said the plan was simple.
“Honestly, just filling the zone up,” he said. “They were a really heavy swinging team, but we knew that coming in here and just filling the zone up with the right pitches.”
Gray shuts down a dangerous Cincinnati lineup
The outing was even more impressive considering the opponent.
Cincinnati came into the series with one of the Big 12’s more explosive offenses, batting .306 as a team with 58 home runs. First baseman Quinton Coats entered the weekend with 22 homers, which ranked second nationally, while right-hander Nathan Taylor had gone at least six innings in four straight starts and ranked among the conference leaders in strikeouts.
Gray neutralized that threat for most of the night.
Coats finished 1-for-4 with an RBI single in the eighth, but Gray otherwise kept Cincinnati quiet, struck Coats out twice and held the Bearcats to just one run on four hits. Cincinnati went 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position and struck out 11 times overall. After Gray exited with two outs in the eighth, Anthony Lariz came on and retired all four hitters he faced, striking out two to finish it off.
Wallace said Gray’s pitch mix made life miserable for the heart of Cincinnati’s order.
“When you’re executing six different pitches like that, it’s going to be tough,” Wallace said. “Obviously you have that guy circled as we’re trying not to let that guy beat us. And he handled him pretty well.”
Gray credited some work with pitching coach Drew Thomas on his cutter for helping unlock the outing.
“Me and DT worked on something with our cutter, and that pitch was really working today,” Gray said. “So I’ll give credit to DT on that one.”
Just as important for UCF, Wallace only had to use two pitchers on a night when the bullpen badly needed a break.
“Any time that you can only use two guys … and save some of those guys like Kris Sosnowski and Kevin Schoneboom and Evan Jones that have answered the bell over and over and over again when it’s been really tough, that was huge,” Wallace said.
UCF cashes in during decisive fourth inning
While Gray controlled the game on the mound, UCF did most of its offensive damage in a chaotic fourth inning.
After Cayden Gaskin singled to open the frame, Cincinnati starter Nathan Taylor threw away a pickoff attempt, allowing Gaskin to move to second. Andrew Williamson followed with a single that, combined with a throwing error by second baseman Jackson Smith, brought home the game’s first run. John Smith III then walked, Zak Skinner laid down a sacrifice bunt, and after a Javier Crespo strikeout, Landon Moran lined a two-out double down the right-field line to score Williamson and Smith. Moran later came home when DeAmez Ross reached on another Cincinnati error, giving UCF a 4-0 lead.
That swing from Moran was the biggest hit of the inning and the kind of at-bat UCF had been missing during its recent skid.
“I’m happy it finally broke through with a hit,” Moran said. “It felt good. Definitely a big moment right there.”
Wallace also pointed directly to Moran’s hit as a turning point.
“We knew that guy’s a really good pitcher, and he’s going to chew through you at some point,” Wallace said of Taylor. “Every time we faced him, there’s been one inning where we got a shot and you’ve got to execute, and that two-out single by Landon Moran was huge. And then to keep on tacking on was great.”
UCF added another run in the fifth when Austin Jacobs singled, stole second, moved to third on a passed ball and scored on Williamson’s sacrifice fly. The Knights pushed across two more in the sixth after Skinner and Crespo singled, Moran dropped down a sacrifice bunt and Cincinnati uncorked back-to-back wild pitches. UCF finished with seven runs on seven hits and took advantage of three Bearcat errors. Moran drove in two, while Williamson added an RBI and scored once.
Moran said UCF’s offensive mindset during the losing streak had been to simplify everything.
“Just go back to the basics,” he said. “Play defense hard, pitch strikes, hit the ball hard. There’s not much you can really do.”
A needed response after a rough stretch
For Wallace, Friday looked much more like the version of UCF that had climbed into the rankings and spent much of the past month near the top of the conference standings.
He said the Knights responded well after the difficult week.
“We had Wednesday off. Yesterday’s practice was awesome,” Wallace said. “When they rolled in today, I thought they were ready to go. That’s kind of what we’ve been preaching the whole time. You’ve got to move on past these. If you let that bother you in this league, you’re going to get buried in a hurry.”
Gray echoed that approach.
“In my mind, I was not worried about the last four games,” he said. “It’s always one game at a time. Today is the day, and I live in the present. There’s no worries about the past.”
He also felt Friday was a step back toward the identity UCF had been chasing.
“I feel like last weekend we kind of went away from it, not really playing our game,” Gray said. “One thing we always say is you’ve got to know your game and you’ve got to execute it. I feel like we kind of swayed away from it last weekend, but we’re back to it.”
Braden Smith update
Wallace also provided an update on Braden Smith, who had been UCF’s Friday night starter before suffering facial fractures after being struck by a line drive at West Virginia two weeks ago.
“He had one of his procedures today. Everything went well,” Wallace said. “I haven’t talked to him since this afternoon, but it looks like everything that was supposed to happen today went very well.”
Gray said Smith remains very much on the team’s mind.
“He’s doing much better. He’s been able to go outside, been able to expose the light, but he’s definitely still struggling,” Gray said. “All of our prayers are with him, and we’re hoping for a really speedy recovery from him.”
UCF will try to keep the momentum going Saturday with Matt Sauser set to start, while Wallace said Camden Wicker is lined up for Sunday.
