No. 5 Miami Baseball Welcomes No. 11 UCLA For Three-Game Set
Feb. 8, 2007
CORAL GABLES – – The University of Miami baseball team returns to action this weekend when the Hurricanes welcome No. 11 UCLA to Mark Light Field for a three-game series. First pitch at Mark Light Field is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Friday. The teams will play again on Saturday, Feb. 10 at 7:30 p.m. and close out the series on Sunday, Feb. 11 at 1 p.m.
All three games will be broadcast locally by the Student Voice of UM, WVUM (90.5 FM). WRHC (1550 AM) will carry Friday’s and Saturday’s games in spanish while WQAM (560 AM) will broadcast on Friday and Sunday.
No. 5 Miami looks to bounce back after dropping a pair of games at home to Mercer last weekend in which the final game of the series was rained out. Third baseman Gus Menendez and first baseman Yonder Alonso each had four hits against Mercer. Alonso belted his first home run of the season against the Bears. Menendez hit .800 and drove in two runs and drew four walks. Junior lefty Scott Maine will make his first start of the season Friday after sitting out last weekend’s opener. Maine is on the 2007 Roger Clemens Watch List after going 12-3 with 4.57 ERA in 18 starts last season. He also had 76 strikeouts in 106.1 innings. RHP Danny Gil will make his second start of the season Saturday. Gil tossed 4.1 innings against Mercer and allowed four runs on three hits. He added four strikeouts. Left-hander Manny Miguelez rounds out the rotation on Sunday. Miguelez allowed one run on five hits in five innings against Mercer. Miami out-hit Mercer, 20-19, in the season opening weekend. Center fielder Blake Tekotte went 3-for-9 with two runs and two doubles.
UCLA is coming off an opening weekend series win over Winthrop in which the Bruins won two of three games. Senior right-hander Tyson Brummett struck out six in eight innings and held Winthrop to one run on six hits in leading UCLA to a 2-1 win in the opener. Winthrop won 6-4 on Saturday before UCLA scored 19 runs on 23 hits to win 19-5 on Sunday. Left fielder Mickey Weisser hit .545 (6-for-11) in the Winthrop series to lead the Bruins. He drove in four runs. Second baseman Alden Carrithers, catcher Ryan Babineau and shortstop Brandon Crawford each had five hits.
The Bruins hit .349 as a team against Winthrop driving in 25 runs on 38 hits. The Bruin pitching staff struck out 20 in 27 innings. Brummett (1-0, 1.12 ERA) will make his second start of the season for the Bruins on Friday. Left-handers Brendan Lafferty (1-0, 7.36 ERA) or Paul Schmidt (0-1, 13.50 ERA) will get the start on Saturday while lefty Gavin Brooks will make his second career start on Sunday. . Miami leads the all-time series, 10-1. UM took two of three games in last season’s series in Los Angeles.
