By James Gravley
On Sunday, the Cincinnati Bearcats earned its first series win of the young season with an impressive 19-5 drumming over the No. 11 ranked Duke Blue Devils.
Cincinnati was, by many experts, predicted to finish near the bottom of the Big 12 this season but after claiming the series against the Blue Devils, you have to wonder if those expectations were falsely predicted.
The Bearcats won the Opening Day game on Friday by a score of 8-3 and dropped game two on Saturday 6-5 in 12 innings, but had the bats ready for action on Sunday.
The most impressive part of the victory for Cincinnati was that they only hit one home run while Duke hit three.
The sole home run for the Bearcats came from Cal Sefcik, which was his first of the season. He went 1-2 with a homer and two RBI.
Kerrington Cross had an impressive outing for the Bearcats as he went 3-5 with four RBI and a run scored.
Donovan Ford went 2-5 with three RBI.
Dawson Hokuf went 2-5 with three RBI and three runs scored.
Charlie Niehaus went 1-3 with three RBI and two runs scored.
As for the Cincinnati pitching, their starter Adam Mrakitsch went three complete innings allowing three runs on three hits while walking one and striking out three on 52 pitches.
The Bearcats used four relief pitchers in which Hudson Johnson worked the most innings. He worked three full innings allowing two hits and a run allowed while walking one and striking out two.
Carson Marsh, Brendan Oliver and Chase Horst each threw one inning a piece and combined allowed one hit and a run allowed with two walks and four strikeouts.
"They just executed al the little things better than we did," Duke head coach Chris Pollard said following the opener on Friday night. "They executed well on the mound and played sound defense. I just tip my hat to Cincinnati."
Cincinnati did have a midweek game with Bowling Green scheduled for Tuesday, but with the temperatures not getting out of the high 20s, the game was canceled.
The Bearcats will travel to Las Vegas to play a four-game series against UNLV on Friday night with first pitch scheduled for 9:05 PM EST.
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