Canes Crush Five Homers in 20-1 Win Over UMBC
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – One day after leaving 14 runners on, the Miami Hurricanes exploded for 20 runs to secure a series sweep of UMBC with a 20-1 win on Sunday afternoon.
Raymond Gil hit two of Miami’s five home runs, while every starting Miami infielder hit a homer at Alex Rodriguez Park at Mark Light Field, helping the Canes (9-2) get off to their best start since opening the 2013 season 10-1.
“We were just focused from the beginning,” Gil said. “Everyone bought into the scouting report and we put some good swings. Yesterday we hit the ball hard, it was just going at people. We stuck with the same approach and the ball was falling more today.”
UMBC (2-4) scored first in the series finale, as second baseman AJ Wright pushed Blaze O’Saben home with a one-out sacrifice fly to left in the top of the first. But that is all the offense Miami starter Brian Van Belle allowed, earning his second win of the season after holding UMBC to a lone unearned run on two hits over six innings while posting a career-best nine strikeouts.
“I feel like I got off to a slow start,” Van Belle said. “I didn’t have my best stuff today, but after the first inning the offense obviously got a hold of a lot of balls and put a lot of runs on the board and that gave us a lot of momentum for the game.”
Miami’s offense answered in the bottom of the inning with a quartet of two-out hits and never looked back. Shortstop Freddy Zamora got the rally started with a double down the third base line before right fielder Adrian Del Castillo tied the game with an RBI double to right to push Zamora home and tie the game at 1.
The Canes jumped ahead, 2-1, after an RBI single to center from Alex Toral drove Del Castillo home from second and Gil singled to left to round out the two-out hit parade in the first.
Anthony Vilar, who had the game-winning hit on Saturday night, stayed hot on Saturday. The freshman crushed his first career homer, belting a two-run shot to right off UMBC starter Nick Trabacchi to give Miami a 4-1 lead in the second inning.
The Canes added another homer in the third, as Gil smashed his third home run of the season deep to left to give Miami a 5-1 lead. Trabacchi, who allowed seven runs on seven hits over three-plus innings pitched, allowed two of Miami’s five home runs on Sunday afternoon.
“Once we got up a little bit, you could just feel it,” head coach Gino DiMare said. “Last night their dugout was into the game and they were getting after it. Once we got up after three innings, their dugout was dead.”
Miami broke the game open in the fourth after Zamora smacked a grand slam to left off reliever Tanner Esposito and Gil followed two batters later with a two-run bomb to register his first multi-homer game as a Cane and give Miami an 11-1 lead.
An inning later Miami added three more runs when Toral smashed his team-leading seventh home run of the season to put the Hurricanes ahead, 14-1.
The Canes plated three runs in the seventh, as Gabe Rivera hit a high fly ball to left that dropped in as pushed two home and JP Gates followed with an RBI double to right that allowed Rivera to score easily.
An inning later, the Canes scored their final three runs of the day when Rivera hit a based loaded two-run single to center. Then reliever Andy Rozylowicz balked, allowing Willy Escala to come home from third and round out the 20-run game.
Relievers Mark Mixon, Jeremy Cook, Alex Ruiz and Albert Maury each threw a scoreless inning of relief behind Van Belle to close out the game for Miami.
The Hurricanes are back in action Wednesday against Appalachian State. First pitch is scheduled for 6 p.m.
