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Baseball Cats Go 2-1 Against Wright State Raiders in First Home Series

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UK Athletics

It’s now transitioning to baseball season in Lexington. The Kentucky baseball is underway in Lexington and the Bat-Cats already have a few wins under their belt. This past weekend, the Cats opened their home season opener against the Wright State Raiders, a good program that has the most conference tournament championships in the Horizon League.

Game One: Kentucky 8-Wright State 3

Starting the series on Friday, the Wildcats beat the Raiders 8-3 in what was all around hitting clinic for the Cats. Fourteen hits on the day, six of which were doubles. The Raiders started the game by scoring two runs quickly at the top of the first, the Wildcats then answered with three runs of their own in the bottom of the first.

Catcher Devin Burkes finished the game with three doubles and three RBIs, Second Baseman Emilien Pitre also had three hits and three RBIs.

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Through six, Pitcher Logan Martin allowed four hits and three runs before Darren Williams closed out the game by allowing zero hits and zero runs in the closing three innings of the game.

Game Two: Wright State 12-Kentucky 9

The second game of the series started a little differently for the Cats. The Raiders came out hot, hitting two home runs by Andrew Patrick and Jay Luikart in the first inning, capping off a 4-0 lead early on.

The Raiders’ lead got up to 9-1 through the first five innings. The tale of the Wildcats’ struggles on Saturday was the multiple errors made by the infield. Four error total, three of which were failed pickoff attempts.

The Wildcats used five different pitchers in the game that let up a total of twelve runs on the day. Starting pitcher Tyler Bosma took the loss after pitching 2 1/3 innings allowing 6 runs. Austin Strickland, Seth Logue, Colby Freida, and Ryder Giles all finished the Cats’ pitching game. Each pitcher allowed at least one run, with Strickland allowing three.

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The Cats closed the deficit to as close as 10-8 through the 8th inning, but couldn’t grab a lead as Wright State closed out the game with a 2-run 9th inning to seal the game 12-9.

Game Three: Kentucky 15-Wright State 0

The Wildcats came to play on Sunday for the final game of the series. Devin Burkes homered to deep left field with James Mccoy on base, putting the Cats up 2-0 early after the first inning. Kentucky then followed their hot start with a 4-run second inning.

The Wildcats lead got up to 9-0 after six innings of play, forcing the Raiders to use five different during that stretch.

RHP Zach Lee pitched a gem. Through six, he allowed zero runs off three hits before getting pulled. Ryan Hagenow came in at the top of the seventh allowing zero runs. Junior LHP Magdiel Cotto came in to close the game at the top of the eighth.

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Kentucky didn’t let up, scoring six runs in the bottom of the eight, behind a Hunter Gilliam 2-run home run, stretching the score to 15-0. Devin Burkes finished the game hitting 3-6 with a home run and seven RBIs.

Series Wrap Up

For the series, the Cats played overall pretty well. Totaling 36 hits and 32 runs on the weekend. Kentucky improves their record to 5-2 early on this season and hopes to finish their non-conference schedule strong before SEC play starts in a few weeks.

Kentucky plays one game against Morehead State on Tuesday, the opens a three-game series against Indiana State next weekend in Lexington.

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Football

Grammy Nominated Music Star Has Credit Card Stolen, Thief Buys 15 Hotdogs at Kentucky Football Game

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A Kentucky football fan stole music artist Noah Kahan's wallet at an airport and purchased 15 overpriced hot dogs.
Piet Levy | Imagn

Not a lot of good things came from Kentucky’s 24-10 loss to Auburn on Saturday, but one fan did get FIFTEEN (yes, 1-5) hot dogs courtesy of Grammy-nominated folk-pop artist Noah Kahan.

To clarify it was not a gift, rather the fan stole Kahan’s wallet at Laguardia Airport in New York City. Of all the places for it to venture to, it was Kroger Field.

“The guy who took my wallet went to a Kentucky football game last night,” Kahan shared on social media. “I just know that Mofo bought 15 overpriced hot dogs.”

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Kahan has found comedy in the situation, despite having hundreds of dollars in hot dogs purchased on his dime.

“Come on dawg we gotta be collaborative in our spending!! Check with me first,” Kahan shared.

Kahan headlined Railbird Music Festival in Lexington this past summer. Maybe the next time he is in town, he can get a hot dog of his own.

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Cards Best Cats On National Stage In Volleyball

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The Kentucky Wildcats volleyball team lost to the Louisville Cardinals in a top 10 battle.
Megan Simmons | UK Athletics

The fourth-ranked Cardinals traveled to Memorial Coliseum in Lexington on Wednesday night to take on the 11th-ranked Wildcats. 

The stage was set for another memorable Battle of the Bluegrass with both teams having a national ranking. In addition to that, the game was broadcast nationally on ESPN and was in front of a great crowd of 3,838 in Memorial. 

Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough for the Cats to pull through as they lost in four sets, 25-21, 25-18, 20-25, 25-16

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The lady Cats have now fallen to 6-4 on the season, as well as 0-4 against ranked opponents. To make matters worse this is the 4th consecutive loss to Louisville in the annual match-up. However, Kentucky still holds the series 37-29.

After the match, Kentucky head coach Craig Skinner said “Our team did a good job of sustaining their concentration level, but execution suffered at times.” He also gave credit to the Louisville team, complimenting their ability to “play well for a long period of time.” He also credited the 4th ranked team’s ability to “continue to limit options,” and elaborated. “I mean, I think the first several passes, they were doing a good job keeping themselves in the system. And when you’re playing against teams like that, to get blocks when they’re passing the ball within 8 feet of the net, it’s tough. And so it comes down to individual plays, reading the situation of the attacker and making those moves and getting those stuffs. And creating chances by transition opportunities to limit their options that way, too. But yeah, it took a while. And obviously, something we continue to work on.”

Looking to shake off this series the Wildcats will face No.2 Stanford who are 7-1 in Palo Alto, California, on Saturday at 10:30 p.m. Eastern. The game will be broadcast on ESPN2.

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Kentucky Baseball Transfer Class Ranked Ninth in the Country

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Kentucky Baseball is bringing in the ninth best transfer class in the country.
USA Today/IMAGN

The Kentucky Baseball program is coming off its first-ever trip to the College World Series and they have carried that momentum to the recruiting trail. After losing a large amount of production and experience, Nick Mingione and Co. went and hit the transfer portal hard and are bringing in some talented players.

According to 64Analytics, the Bat Cats are bringing in the 9th-best portal class in the country. The class consists of fifteen players totals, including seven players within the top 250.

92. 1B/DH Cole Hage (Columbia)
114. C Raphael Pelletier (Kansas State)
152. INF Luke Lawrence (Illinois State)
156. OF Shaun Montoya (San Diego State) Transfer Spotlight
168. RHP Nic McCay (South Dakota State)
211. RHP Scott Rouse (Radford)
235. LHP Ethan Walker (Longwood) Transfer Spotlight
272. OF Carson Hansen (Milwaukee) Transfer Spotlight
319. RHP Oliver Boone (California) Transfer Spotlight
398. OF Will Marcy (Memphis)
407. RHP Simon Gregersen (Indiana State)
425. LHP Cole Hentschel (Richmond) Transfer Spotlight
752. 1B Dylan Koontz (Columbia) Transfer Spotlight
2872. RHP Chase Alderman (Eastern Kentucky) Transfer Spotlight
2893. LHP Adam Hachman (Arkansas)

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Mingione is no stranger to the transfer portal as he has effectively used the portal to completely change the outlook of his tenure and the program.

From the brink of being fired in 2021, he has led the Cats to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances for the first time in program history. In those appearances, they advanced to the Super Regionals in each and the aforementioned CWS this past season. With this incoming class, Mingione will hope to continue that trajectory and become a consistent tournament team and contender.

That said it will be difficult. While Kentucky has one of the top classes in the portal, it is the 7th best in the SEC, with top 25 programs in Oklahoma and Texas joining the conference as well.

There will likely be some fall exhibitions for the Kentucky Wildcats, but it won’t be until February that we get to see how this collection of talent looks and if they can make another run to Omaha.

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Also published on A Sea of Blue.

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