All-SEC pitcher Jaxon Jelkin struck out four in 5 2/3 innings before a series of two-out singles knocked him out of Tuesday's game. (SEC Photo)
For almost six innings it looked like Kentucky was on its way to a needed Southeastern Conference Tournament win over Vanderbilt that absolutely would have locked UK into the NCAA Tournament.
The Cats (31-21) had a 4-1 lead thanks to a Luke Lawrence RBI single in the first inning, a Tyler Bell solo homer, another Lawrence RBI single and a solo homer by Carson Hansen.
Kentucky ace Jaxon Jelkin had looked great for 5 2/3 innings and was almost out of the sixth with a 4-1 lead but a third strike foul tip was not caught. That led to a walk before Vandy ripped off four straight singles, including two with two strikes. A UK throwing error allowed the go-ahead run to score and Vandy added three more runs in the eighth inning to put the game away.
“Love the start we got off to. Give our guys a lot of credit to jump off to a good lead. And then tip your cap to Vanderbilt. They had some good swings. They put some good balls in play, barely were out of reach for, I think, three of them. And they put the balls in play,” said Kentucky coach Nick Mingione. “We didn’t necessarily make the pitch or the play and that’s the difference in the game. Credit to them.
“Loved our team’s fight right there to the very end. That’s what we do. We keep games close and we stay in the game. Credit to them. They did a good job.”
Second baseman Lawrence went 2-for-3 with a double and two runs knocked in. He was also hit by a pitch. He has reached base in 53 of UK’s 55 games and his 255 career hits rank among the top 15 active players in college baseball. Bell was 2-for-4 with a home run and double, scored twice and drove in a run.
“Over the last three years we have an average RPI of eighth in the country and the reason we’ve done that is we have some really good players. We’ve played a really challenging schedule, and our players work really hard. So that’s what we’ll do. We’ll get back to work,” Mingione said after the loss.
“We’ll get back to town tomorrow. I’ll give them tomorrow off and then we’ll get back to work at practice. We watch a ton of video. Our team loves baseball. We’ll watch the video and every game is different, and so once I study the video, we’ll create a game plan and what we did well, what we need to work on, and where we need to grow.”
