LEXINGTON, Ky. -- WKU Baseball (11-5) continued its recent dominance over Kentucky (12-4) with a convincing, 14-6, blowout win over the Wildcats in Lexington on Tuesday.
The Hilltoppers have won nine of the last 11 meetings in the series, including three-straight, and have claimed victories in their last six games against Southeastern Conference opposition. WKU out-hit UK 15-9 en route to racking up its most-ever runs against the in-state rival in Lexington. Every starting player for the Tops reached base and all but one scored a run.
WKU scored all of its runs in the second, fourth and eighth innings, highlighted by the six runs pushed across in the top of the second. After that frame, the Wildcats were able to cut the deficit to five, but the Hilltoppers never allowed them to come any closer.
In the all-important second inning, three straight singles scored Kaleb Duckworth and Harrison Scanlon to start off the frame before Steven Kraft ripped an RBI single to bring home Ty Downing from second. Zach Janes and Kraft would also come across to score later in the WKU at-bat after back-to-back singles by Thomas Peter and Danny Hudzina.
Coming up to the plate for the second time in the inning, Scanlon drew a bases-loaded walk to plate Peter to give the Hilltoppers a 6-0 lead. Hudzina extended his hitting streak to 21 games after going 3-for-6 from the plate with three runs driven in and a run scored. Through 16 games, he holds a .471 batting average to go along with 33 hits and 19 runs.
Ty Downing joined Hudzina with three hits in the contest as there were five Hilltoppers who recorded multiple hits. Downing drove in a pair and scored another two runs, while Kraft and Janes also tallied two RBI each. Duckworth was another WKU batter with a multi-hit game, pushing his season average to .413 after going 2-for-4 with an RBI and two runs.
Logan Weins secured his second consecutive win against an SEC school after 2.2 innings of relief and only allowing one earned run. WKU used four total pitchers as Cody Coll went 3.1 innings as the starter, while Sam Higgs (1.0 IP) and Jackson Sowell (2.0) closed out the victory. In seven appearances in relief in 2016, Sowell has a 0.79 ERA and 12 strikeouts.
WKU will return to action on Friday, March 18, as it beings its conference schedule with a weekend series at Old Dominion in Norfolk, Virginia.
