Top 25 Games of the Year: #22 - UCF Baseball Walks Off Memphis

With the season on the line at the American Conference Baseball Championships in Clearwater, UCF Knights senior Dallas Beaver delivered a walk-off single to right field to lift the #6-seed UCF Knights to an 8-7 win in extra innings over #7 seed Memphis in an elimination game at Spectrum Field on May 23.

The Knights had lost their conference tournament opener the night before against Tulane, and played from behind for most of the game. But the Knights offense always responded when it seemed that the game was getting away.

In the bottom of the 3rd, Ray Alejo sent the Knights into the lead with a two-run shot to left to give UCF a 3-2 lead.

But the Knights would not hold on to the lead and found themselves down 7-4 in the bottom of the 5th when UCF mounted another comeback started by catcher Ben McCabe.

UCF would pull within 7-6 in the bottom of the 8th when Dalton Wingo tied the game up with an RBI single.

The game would go into extra innings and the Knights started the bottom of the 10th off with a single by McCabe. Gephry Pena came in to pinch run as Brandon Hernandez dropped a sacrifice bunt to move him up to second. Two batters later, the stage was set for Beaver, who took a 1-1 pitch to right field, which gave Pena plenty of time to score the game-winning run.

Following the game, Beaver spoke to American Digital’s Network Hali Oughton about his at-bat that won the game for the Knights.

The Knights lived to play another game and Head Coach Greg Lovelady was grateful for it as he also talked with Oughton after the game.