UCF’s season ends with NCAA Regional loss to Auburn

DeAmez Ross gave UCF the exact start it wanted.

In the first at-bat of the night, Ross drove a 0-1 pitch over the wall in right field, giving the Knights an immediate lead and a jolt of energy in an elimination game at Plainsman Park.

It was the kind of opening UCF needed, but Auburn eventually wrestled away the momentum.

The host Tigers used six home runs and scored in six consecutive innings from the third through the eighth to pull away from UCF, ending the Knights’ season with a 9-3 loss Sunday night in the NCAA Auburn Regional.

UCF finished the year 32-23 after going 1-2 in the regional, beating NC State in the opener before dropping games to Milwaukee and Auburn.

“Obviously, congratulations to Auburn,” UCF head coach Rich Wallace said. “They played a heck of a game. Our kids competed. They competed for the last two months as hard as any team I’ve ever coached, and I couldn’t be more proud of these guys. I’m really going to miss these two guys sitting next to me.”

Those two guys were Ross and catcher Zak Skinner, two seniors who helped set the tone for the most successful season of Wallace’s three-year tenure.

Ross finished 2-for-4 with a home run and two RBIs. He said his leadoff homer was about giving the Knights a statement swing.

“It’s the last game,” Ross said. “We wanted to go out swinging. We wanted to go all in on it. I just wanted to get the team started as the leadoff hitter and set the tone that we were coming here to compete and play the UCF standard.”

Skinner gave UCF one more push in the sixth, smashing a solo home run that bounced off the video board and for a few minutes knocked out a strip of LED bulbs. It was a 4-3 game at that point.

“I think we held on as well as we could for the most part, for as long as we could,” Skinner said. “With my at-bats, I was just trying to get a pitch I could do damage with, something I could hit hard, and I was lucky enough to get a good one.”

UCF starter Roman Kimball struck out seven, but the stop-and-start nature of the night made his outing more difficult. Kimball allowed four runs on five hits and three walks in 4.1 innings.

The game was supposed to start at 3 p.m. ET, but was delayed three hours due to rain and lightning. And once it started, the game was interrupted twice early by weather delays. The first came in the bottom of the first inning, delaying the game 22 minutes. The second came in the bottom of the second, delaying it another 28 minutes.

Wallace said UCF was trying to manage Kimball from the start, knowing the weather could become a factor.

“They kind of happened out of the blue,” Wallace said. “We were trying to manage that thing from pitch one. Roman kind of expected that, and we were just trying to keep him engaged as much as we could on the breaks and see how long he could go.

“I think if we don’t have those breaks, he probably could have pitched us another inning or two. With the up and down, he probably pitched seven innings out of him, even though he only went four and two-thirds. That was tough, but that’s just what this thing is. You’re in a regional and crazy stuff happens. I thought he did as good a job as you could have done managing that from his standpoint.”

Auburn finished with 10 hits, including the six home runs. Chase Fralick went 2-for-3 with two home runs and three RBIs, while Mason McCraine finished 2-for-4 with two runs scored and two RBIs.

UCF managed six hits and went 2-for-3 with runners in scoring position, but the Knights were held scoreless over the final three innings by Auburn reliever Ryan Hetzler, who allowed one hit and struck out five in three innings to earn the save.

Auburn starter Alex Petrovic earned the win, allowing three runs, two earned, on five hits over six innings.

For UCF, the loss closed a season that represented another step forward under Wallace.

The Knights tied for third in the Big 12 with a 19-11 conference record, their best finish since joining the league. The 19 conference wins were UCF’s most since 2005, and the Knights won a Big 12-era best seven conference series. UCF also returned to the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three seasons.

Wallace said the success started with the seniors.

“You can look at the success on the field, but I think it starts off the field with our senior leaders,” Wallace said. “These are two of them. I asked them to do a couple things — make a stand in the Big 12, and obviously they did that at 19-11, third place in the league, and get us back to the postseason where we belong.

“I asked them to, one, become a team and then eventually become a family, and I think they absolutely did that. And then to play with the toughness and the grit that we believe in at UCF. I’ve coached teams that have dealt with the injuries and setbacks that these guys had, and they don’t even come close to accomplishing what this group has. This group will stick in my mind for a long time.”

Ross said that bond was built long before UCF was playing postseason baseball.

“This has definitely been one of my favorite teams of all time,” Ross said. “The team camaraderie and our bonding has been on the next level. Coach did a great job with doing that.

“We set the tone early. We had military training, we all got super close from that, and we had 5 a.m. pool workouts. After that, we all just fought for each other. We had each other’s back. I’m just going to miss this team so much because they were the reason why I showed up to the field every day with a smile, ready to get after it, because I wanted to play one more game with them every single day and every single practice.”