JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Notre Dame baseball team fell by a 4-2 final score against UCF on opening night of the Live Like Lou Jax Baseball Classic on Friday night at VyStar Ballpark.
Jack Radel came out dealing and struck out the side in the top of the first inning. Parker Brzustewicz made a pair of solid plays at first, and Radel chalked up a fourth strikeout in the top of the second. The junior righty closed out another three-up, three-down frame with a strikeout looking in the top of the third.
Radel posted another quick three-up, three-down effort in the top of the fourth for the Irish. Drew Berkland made an impressive diving catch to open the top of the fifth and added a routine catch before Radel struck out another Knight to keep it scoreless.
The Irish broke through in the bottom half of the inning as Dylan Passo blasted a one-out solo homer over the right field wall for a 1-0 advantage.
Radel continued his quality outing with back-to-back strikeouts in the top of the sixth before inducing a soft flyout to Mason Barth at second base to end the top half of the frame. Radel was perfect through six innings of work on the night with nine strikeouts.
Jayce Lee reached on a fielder’s choice with two outs and advanced into scoring position on a wild pitch. Noah Coy then delivered an RBI single to right field to give the Irish the 2-0 advantage.
Noah Rooney entered the game in relief in the bottom of the seventh and had a three-up, three-down to flip the game over to the seventh-inning stretch.
The Knights plated a run in the top of the eighth with a walk, a single and a sacrifice fly to make it a 2-1 game. In the top of the ninth, the Knights put their lead-off man on base on an error and moved the tying run into scoring position with a sacrifice bunt. A two-out triple by UCF knotted the score up at 2-2. Chase Van Ameyde came in and struck out the first batter he faced to force the Knights into stranding the go-ahead run at third.
UCF plated a pair of runs in the top of the tenth to gain a 4-2 lead. Notre Dame was unable to put together the rally in the bottom half of the inning as the game ended by the 4-2 final margin.
Dylan Passo belted the first home run of his collegiate career, and Parker Brzustewicz went 2-for-4 at the plate for the Irish. Noah Coy had a hit and drove in a run. Drew Berkland, Mark Quatrani and Jamie Zee each added a hit in the game.
Jack Radel had a quality start on the mound for the Irish as the junior went 6.0 with nine strikeouts, no hits and no walks while facing the minimum 18 batters. Noah Rooney went 2.0 on the mound and struck out one. Oisin Lee went two-thirds of an inning with a strikeout, and Chase Van Ameyde posted two-thirds of an inning with a strikeout while shouldering the loss on the bump. Eli Thurmond added two-thirds of an inning of work for the Irish.
Notre Dame (2-2) has a short turnaround as the Irish face No. 2 LSU on Saturday. The game is scheduled to begin at noon ET at VyStar Ballpark in Jacksonville, Florida.