Wednesday Wildcat Wood 'n' Leather Update (Walkin' Hard)

Hoo-wee are we back! The Cats with Bats admittedly had underperformed at times this season, and things were starting to look pretty grim for Gary Henderson, needing to practically win out to start looking at the post season. They had a home swing against a national title defending ranked LSU team ahead, and the home stretch beginning to stretch out; the pressure was certainly on. The response? Winning 4 out of 5 and sweeping the Bayou Bengals. Lets check out the recaps:

5/12 v Lipscomb (L 10-8)- The lone drop of the week, the Fightin’ Marty Roe’s clipped the Cats with a solid offensive performance in which they roughed up freshman Sam Kidd for 7 runs in the first 4 innings. The Cats responded strongly with multi-hit games from Nidiffer, Glad ,Wiley, and freshman footballer-gone-baseball Brian Adams going 3-4 from the plate but couldn’t make enough of a push in the later innings to get the win, despite a stellar 3 innings of scoreless relief from sophomore Sean Bouthilette.

5/14 v #20 LSU (W 11-9)- Lance Ray, Lance Ray, Lance Ray, how your golden bat has lit up my life. Trailing one run in the bottom of the 9th, the fabulous Mr. Ray jacked his second 3-run homer over the wall. With SEC save leader Matt Ott on the mound walking the two previous batters, Ray stepped up with one 3-RBI round trip under his belt and stayed patient, pushing the count to 3-1 before putting a huge hit on the ball and ending it. Down 9-3 in the 4th, freshman starter Taylor Rogers was taken off the mound but was replaced by Walter Wijas who pitched a career best 4 shutout innings. Chad Wright was another offensive highlight, crossing the plate 3 times himself.

5/15 v #20 LSU (w 9-4)- The young bullpen continued to impress as freshman Jordan Cooper pitched a career high 7 innings, only allowing 4 runs and striking out 5. Chris Bisson, Luke Maile, and Taylor Black each put one over the fence. The contributions gave the Cats their first season with 4 players hitting 10+ homeruns since 2006. Marcus Nidiffer has 9 homers on the year and didn’t have one this game but went 3-5 from the plate, totaling 10 hits in the last 3 games.

5/16 v #20 LSU (W 6-4)- Marcus Nidiffer played his last home game as a Cat on Sunday, and made sure it was a memorable night. With the Big Blue down 2-4 in the bottom of the eighth, Marcus was staring down All-American closer Matt Ott with the bases loaded and a full count. He knew what that moment meant.”Someone actually mentioned that to me in the dugout and I was like,`Well, I’m going to make it worthwhile.'” His crushing shot over the left field wall was the winning hit and the his 10th of the year, giving the Cats their 5th 10-homer player. The win over LSU was UK’s first sweep of the Tigers in 19 years. Nidiffer was named SEC player of the week after the series.

5/18 v Murray State (W 6-3)- Sophomore Joe Devine got the start for the final non-conference game in the 2010 season and pitched a gem, lasting 5 inning and striking out 4 in a one run outing. Chris Bisson had the only multi-hit game for the Cats, but effective pitching was the theme of this game with Walter Wijas, Mike Kaczmarek, and Logan Darnell all being used to limit the Thoroughbreds’ offense.

UK wraps up the season with a trip down to Georgia for a three game swing before starting the SEC tournament. The Cats officially manned up when they needed to, now they need to keep walking….hard.

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