No. 22 Kentucky baseball 18-2 after 14th straight win in sweep of SEC-opening series
The University of Kentucky baseball team is 20 games into a 2022-23 season in which it will encounter many of the nation’s most highly rated teams.
Games await the 22nd-ranked Wildcats (coaches’ poll) against No. 1 LSU, No. 3 Florida, No. 5 Vanderbilt, No. 6 Louisville, No. 11 South Carolina, No. 12 Tennessee, No. 18 Texas A&M and No. 25 Alabama.
Before UK gets to that, it has spent the first month of the campaign constructing a cushion to withstand the blows undoubtedly to come.
And the Wildcats have executed that task with near perfection.
Kentucky defeated Southeastern Conference foe and 2021 national champion Mississippi State 17-3 at Kentucky Proud Park on Sunday to complete a three-game league-opening sweep of the Bulldogs for their 14th win in a row.
Kentucky is now 18-2 overall and 3-0 in league play after recording its first conference series sweep since doing so at Auburn in March 2021.
UK owns the nation’s longest active win streak and it’s the school’s longest since the 2012 team opened the season 22-0.
Kentucky’s patient plate approach led to a fast start Sunday as the Wildcats took advantage of four consecutive walks and a throwing error to score four first-inning runs. In the series, Kentucky drew 22 walks and six batters were hit by pitches.
Mississippi State (13-8, 0-3) closed the gap to 4-3 and had the bases loaded in the fourth but Ryder Giles used his sidearm style to strike out a batter and strand the runners. From there, it was all Kentucky, as Reuben Church, Hunter Gilliam and Ryan Waldschmidt all homered and an eight-run sixth inning helped end the game by run rule after seven innings.
Kentucky had 14 hits off five different MSU pitchers, led by Jackson Gray’s 4-for-5 day.
Giles (1-0) earned the win, pitching two-thirds of an inning of no-hit ball in relief of starter Zack Lee.
Kentucky opened the series with a 6-5 win in 10 innings on Friday night then routed the Bulldogs 12-3 on Saturday.
UK will be back in action Tuesday at Kentucky Proud Park when it hosts Eastern Kentucky (8-11) at 6:30 p.m. (SEC Network Plus).
Redshirt freshman right-hander Travis Smith (2-0, 3.29 ERA) will make his fifth straight Tuesday midweek start.
Softball team wins eighth straight
The 14th-ranked Kentucky softball team battled cold weather and a couple of schedule changes but came away with two weekend victories in its annual John Cropp Classic.
The Wildcats run-ruled DePaul 11-3 in five innings on Saturday then took down Michigan 2-1 on Sunday in Lexington.
Junior right-hander Stephanie Schoonover (11-1) pitched the distance for Kentucky against the Wolverines (13-11), allowing two hits and striking out 10 as Kentucky won its eighth straight game to improve to 19-5-1. Schoonover retired the final 14 batters in order.
Junior shortstop Erin Coffel tied Brittany Cervantes for second place on Kentucky’s all-time home run list with her 48th career long ball, a solo shot in the third inning Sunday. Coffel leads the Wildcats with 12 home runs this season and now trails career leader Abbey Cheek (2016-19) by 13.
Kentucky, 3-0 in Southeastern Conference play, will be back in action Friday through Sunday when it hosts No. 24 Texas A&M (16-10, 2-4) for its first league home series of 2023.
