UH baseball had a productive spring break, winning two out of the three games against Columbia over the weekend to improve to 13-7 on the season.
Here’s a recap of how each game went:
Game one
The Cougars opened the series with a 9-5 loss to the Lions on Friday night.
UH was off to a sluggish start and the Lions were able to score nine runs while holding keeping the Cougars scoreless up until the sixth inning.
When the bottom of the sixth came around the Cougars were ready to pounce and scored all of their five runs in this inning alone, sparked by UH freshman infielder Brandon Burckel, who hit a single up the middle of the field to get on base.
After the sixth things went dormant, neither the Lions nor the Cougars were able to claw their way back to home plate and the Lions walked away with the first win of the three-game series.
Game two
The Cougars were able to bounce back from their loss on Friday, defeating the Lions 10-4 in a dominant effort on Saturday.
UH got off to a quick start in game two, scoring four runs in the fourth inning and another run in the fifth to jump out to a 5-0 lead.
Momentum continued from there, the Cougars went on another hitting spree in the bottom of the sixth and tacked on five more runs to their total, making it a runaway lead for UH.
Junior left fielder Brandon Uhse was the sparkplug in game two after sending a grand slam deep into left field for the last four runs of the inning to make it a 10-0 lead for the Cougars.
The Lions eventually ended their scoring drought in the seventh inning after scoring two runs, but by then it was too little, too late and the Cougars were able to come away with the win and tie up the series heading into Sunday’s game.
Game three
The Cougars took the series 2-1 on Sunday with an impressive 12-3 win over the Lions.
UH made it clear that they came to handle business early again, scoring three runs in the second inning and following that up with another three runs in the third to jump out to a 6-0 lead.
Freshman Center fielder and pitcher Malachi Lott took over this game, with two hits and four RBIs from the plate and allowing just one run from the mound.
The Lions failed to reach home plate through the entirety of the first five innings but were able to come up with some offense in the sixth.
The Cougars offense slowed down around the same time Columbia began to gain some momentum, but the Lions couldn’t overcome the lead UH had built early on and the Cougars ran away with another win to take the series.