University of Connecticut Athletics
HookC Plays Midweeks Against Power 5 Conference Foes
4/15/2024 4:45:00 PM | Baseball
STORRS, Conn . - The UConn baseball team (16-17) are set to face a pair of Power 5 Conference teams this week with a Kansas State coming to Elliot Ballpark on Tuesday, April 16 at 6:05 p.m. and then hit the road to play Boston College on Wednesday, April 17 at 3 p.m. Tuesday night's game will be on CBS Sports Network with Carter Blackburn and Todd Coffey on the call. Both midweek games will also be on MIXLR.Â
Kansas State (21-13) was swept this past weekend in Norman, Oklahoma to fall to 7-8 in BIG 12 play. The Wildcats entered the year in a couple Top 25 polls and have a pair of Top-40 MLB prospects in INF Kaelan Culpepper and RHP Tyson Neighbors. Kansas State is currently No. 38Â in most recent RPI rankings.
Boston College (19-16) just lost a series against Wake Forest this past weekend. Cameron Leary hit a walk-off home run on Saturday to take the middle game of that series. The Eagles beat UConn earlier this season, 7-4, with. Cameron Leary hitting a grand slam in the ballgame
Homerin' Huskies... The Huskies have been hitting the ball over the fence at a rapid rate in their last five games. During that stretch, UConn has hit 15 homers including four each for Maddix Dalena and Luke Broadhurst.Â
In total, seven different Huskies have homered and the stretch has featured a three-homer game for Dalena and multi-homer games for Broadhurst and Paul Tammaro.Â
Tammaro Torches St. John's... Paul Tammaro had an all-time game against St. John's in the rubber game of the series. The UConn shortstop recorded a four-hit game that featured a pair of home runs and a career-high NINE runs batted in. The first home run was a go-ahead, three-run homer in the seventh and the second was a walk-off three-run home run.
The nine runs batted in was the most for a UConn player since Brian Packin drove in 10 runs against St. John's in 1999.
Cooke Was Cookin'... In the series opener against St. John's, RHP Ian Cooke had a career night out of the bullpen with 7.2 shutout innings that featured a career-high 14 strikeouts.
It was the first time UConn had a pitcher strike out 14 batters or more since Ben Casparius struck out 15 vs. Georgetown in 2021.Â
Turning A Corner... After losing on March 27th to Northeastern, the Huskies fell to 9-15 on the year, tying a season-low six games under .500. The Huskies had a rare bye weekend and the calendar flipped to April and since then UConn has won 7 o its lastf 9 games.Â
UConn is hitting .334 during that stretch and averaging 9.88 runs per game. Luke Broadhurst is 15-33 (.455) during the stretch with 10 runs scored, two doubles, four homers and 12 runs batted in. 1B Maddix Dalena is hitting .364 with seven home runs and 15 runs batted in. Matt Garbowski is hitting .357 with 10 walks and a .538 on-base percentage. The UConn defense has also been strong with just three errors in the nine games, with one of those coming from a pitcher on a pick off throw.Â
Power Conference Dubs... Since 2010, UConn is 90-80 against teams currently in "Power 5" Conferences. This season the Huskies are 4-7 with victories against Louisville, Auburn, Rutgers and UCLA. Wins duirng the stretch include Clemson, Texas, Oregon State, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Oklahoma State, Michigan and Virginia.Â
UConn has 15 games scheduled against Power 5 schools with Louisville  (1-0) and Boston College (0-1) from the ACC, Cal (0-3) and UCLA (1-0) from the Pac-12, Rutgers (1-2) from the Big Ten, Auburn (1-2) from the SEC and Kansas State and Cincinnati from the Big 12
