Rattlers slide by Knights

Call them the “Comeback Kids,” the “Rallying Rattlers” or what ever you want, the baseball team found a way to win, again by beating Central Florida 12-11 increasing their winning streak to five games.

Alcides Segui lined a double in the bottom of the ninth to score Ben Morgan from first.

“It was extremely gratifying, it’s always special to get a game winning hit when my teammates put me in that position” said Segui

The Knights bolted out to leads of 6-1 and 9-5 in the fourth and fifth innings respectively before the Rattlers stormed back with four runs in the bottom of the fourth and six runs in the bottom of the fifth.

Todd Rodman’s three run home run in the bottom of the fourth was the turning point of the game.

UCF Head Coach Jay Bergman said, ” That was the turning point, we had control of the game and we let it get out of hand.”

Rattler Head Coach Joe Durant agreed that the home run was very critical “It was big, it was very big, I love the three run homer, that put us right back in the ball game.”

Central Florida surged right back and added three runs in the top of the fifth to increase their lead to 9-5 with RBI singles by Ryan Bear, Rich Wallace, and Blaine Schulte.

In the fifth the Rattlers scored six runs on six hits; what is so special about that line is that all of those runs and five of those hits came with two outs.

Overall the Rattlers scored ten of their twelve runs with two outs, including Segui’s game winning double.

“When you are scoring like that you win ball games, you have great batters who are putting it in play” said Joe Durant

The Golden Knights came back to tie the game at 11 in the bottom of the eighth inning with a throwing error by Segui.

When asked whether he had any doubt of the out come of the game Segui confidently replied “Truthfully I knew that we were not gonna lose, we are too good to lose to anyone in the country including (second ranked) Florida State”.

The win brings the Rattlers record up to 11-9 and drops the Golden Knights to 16-8.

The Rattlers will host Norfolk State on Saturday, March 29 at 1:00 p.m.