Miami Hurricanes baseball drops two of three games to UConn Huskies. Next up: ACC play
Dropping two of three games on the road to the Florida Gators, a top-10 team in the country? Completely understandable for the Miami Hurricanes baseball team.
Dropping two of three games at home to the UConn Huskies, a team that entered the series with just two wins through its first nine games? Not so much.
Yet that’s what happened this weekend at Mark Light Field, with UConn winning the first two games of the series 7-2 on Friday and 12-8 on Saturday before the Hurricanes salvaged the finale 15-11 on Sunday.
Miami won its two midweek games in between the Florida and UConn series, defeating FIU 7-3 on Tuesday at loanDepot park and winning 12-2 in eight innings against Villanova on Wednesday.
The Hurricanes are 12-5 on the season.
Poor starting pitching hampered Miami in the first two games of the series.
A six-run third inning, including a UConn grand slam, doomed Nick Robert on Friday. The sophomore right-handed pitcher lasted just 3 2/3 innings.
On Saturday, Griffin Hugus gave up six runs (five earned) on six hits and three walks over 4 2/3 innings. UConn scored three runs in the first to take an early lead and three more in the fifth to take a 6-5. A five-run eighth inning for the Huskies padded their lead.
In the finale, the Hurricanes led 8-2 after three innings. UConn and Miami each scored three runs in the fifth and two in the sixth before the Huskies began to mount a late comeback with a four-run eighth inning to get within 13-11.
But the Hurricanes tacked on two more runs in the bottom half of the eighth to avoid the sweep.
And things aren’t going to start getting any easier. The Hurricanes begin Atlantic Coast conference play next week when they travel to face Wake Forest.
Each of Miami’s first three conference opponents entered the week ranked in the top 25 by D1Baseball: No. 15 Wake Forest (Friday-Sunday) on the road, No. 6 Florida State (March 20-22) at home and No. 4 North Carolina (March 28-30) on the road. Miami also has a road series at No. 9 Virginia May 9-11.
The rest of the Hurricanes’ ACC slate includes Pittsburgh (road April 4-6), Duke (home April 11-13), Georgia Tech (home April 18-20), Boston College (road April 25-27), N.C. State (home May 2-4) and Notre Dame (May 15-17).
The Hurricanes were voted to finish 11th in the 16-team ACC in the league’s coaches poll. Baseball America projects the Hurricanes to finish 13th in the league, while D1Baseball had them 14th in their preseason rankings.
Cuvet, Ogden continue to shine
Despite dropping the weekend series, the duo of third baseman Daniel Cuvet and shortstop Jake Ogden continue to be bright spots in the lineup.
Cuvet hit the go-ahead grand slam in Miami’s 7-3 win over FIU on Tuesday and has hits in 11 of his past 12 games. He produced three games with at least three RBI this week — the grand slam against FIU, a three-hit, four-RBI effort on Saturday against UConn and a three-RBI game in the finale on Sunday against the Huskies.
Cuvet leads Miami with four home runs and is second on the team in RBI (19) and runs scored (19).
Ogden, meanwhile, is hitting .437 on the season and has recorded a hit in 15 of 17 games played. This includes 10 multi-hit games and three three-hit games.
Over five games this week, Ogden went 10 for 19 with two doubles, one home run, six RBI and six runs scored.
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