Miami Hurricanes sweep Niagara — all three blowouts — to begin baseball season
For the first time all weekend, the Miami Hurricanes baseball team found itself in an unusual position: Playing from behind. The Niagara Purple Eagles took advantage of Miami starting pitcher Brian Walters early in Sunday’s series finale and scored a run in the first inning.
Miami’s deficit lasted ... a half-inning.
The Hurricanes tied the game in the bottom half of the inning, then took the lead for good with a three-run third inning on their way to a series-sweeping 11-1 win in seven innings over the Purple Eagles at Mark Light Field.
The team’s agreed to play with a run-rule in effect for Sunday’s finale, which would end the game if one team is leading by 10 or more runs after the seventh inning.
Miami (3-0) won the first two games against Niagara (0-3) 14-2 on Friday and 10-0 on Saturday. It’s the first time UM has scored at least 10 runs in each game of their season-opening series since 2022 when they swept Towson in a four-game set by scores of 10-8, 11-2, 13-2 and 11-1.
The Hurricanes’ offense had 36 hits while drawing 25 walks and capitalized on 10 Niagara fielding errors.
“They helped us a little bit with some errors,” UM coach J.D. Arteaga said, “but good teams take advantage of those errors. It was a very even keel dugout, from pitch one to the last pitch, no matter what the score was.”
Second baseman Dorian Gonzalez Jr. got things started offensively for Miami on Sunday, tying the game with an RBI single in the first inning and giving Miami the lead with an RBI double in the third before leaving the game with what Arteaga said was a leg injury.
“He’ll be fine,” Arteaga said. “I’d rather him sit out half a game than tweaking something, making it worse and losing him for a couple weeks.”
Right fielder Derek Williams added a two-run single later in the third.
After that, it was Miami’s freshmen who took over offensively. Brandon DeGoti, making his first career start on Sunday, hit a leadoff home run to left-center in the fourth inning. Michael Torres, who started all three games in center field, followed with a double and scored from second on a sacrifice fly from Ethan Puig, who replaced Gonzalez in the lineup.
UM then added two more runs apiece in the fifth and sixth innings before Fabio Peralta ended the game with a walk-off single in the seventh.
The extended lead allowed Miami to empty the bench and giving reserves a chance for game reps — just like Miami was also able to do in the first two games of the series after pulling out to big leads early.
“It’s opportunities to get some experience,” Arteaga said. “Anything can happen through the course of the season, so the more opportunities you give guys, the more experience you give guys, the more prepared they’ll be to do the job when you need them to do it.”
Strong statement from rotation
The Hurricanes’ weekend rotation featured three new faces after the trio of Gage Ziehl, Rafe Schlesinger and Herick Hernandez were all selected early in the 2024 MLB Draft.
The three newcomers to the rotation — sophomore Nate Robert, junior and Cincinnati transfer Griffin Hugus and redshirt junior Walters — made quite an impression int heir first starts of the season.
They combined to give up just two earned runs over 16 innings — a 1.13 ERA — while striking out 25 and allowing just eight hits and three walks.
“We struck out a good number of guys,” Arteaga said, “but they were still efficient.”
Robert held Niagara to one earned run over five innings on Friday, giving up four hits and striking out four without issuing a walk. His only blemish was a solo home run in the fifth inning.
Hugus dazzled over six innings on Saturday, striking out a career-high 11 batters and giving up just one hit.
Walters bounced back from his shaky first inning to go five innings with 10 strikeouts. After allowing four of the first six batters he faced to reach on a pair of singles and two walks, he escaped the inning by striking out Niagara left fielder Camden Sanders to strand the bases loaded.
That Sanders strikeout was the first of 12 consecutive batters Walters retired — eight via strikeout — before giving up a two-out infield single to Niagara center fielder Elijha Hammil in the fifth.
“Just flush it,” Walters said of how he responded after the rocky first inning. “You’ve gotta keep going, right? It’s a long ball game. Sticking to your process, sticking to who I am as a pitcher, going right at guys. That mentality chance had to happen in order to have success today.”
Daniel Cuvet sits in finale
Sophomore third baseman Daniel Cuvet, a preseason All-American by multiple national outlets, did not play in Sunday’s finale against Niagara for precautionary reasons after taking a foul ball off his ankle on Saturday.
The Hurricanes expect him to be back in the lineup on Tuesday when they travel to play Florida Atlantic.
With Cuvet out, Jake Ogden moved from his usual spot at shortstop to third base and DeGoti made his first career start at shortstop.
However, the infield defense shifted again starting in the fifth after Gonzalez was removed from the game. Puig took over at third base, Ogden slid back to shortstop and DeGoti moved to second base to end the game.
This story was originally published February 16, 2025 at 2:37 PM.
.JPG)