ORLANDO – Wichita State baseball split a doubleheader to open a four-game American Athletic Conference series at UCF Friday, May 7, at John Euliano Park, falling to the Knights in game one, 6-3, before run-ruling UCF in game two, 11-1 in eight innings.
 
Wichita State (23-18, 11-10 American) and UCF (23-23, 13-9 American) are slated to play game three of the series at 3 p.m. CT (4 p.m. ET) Saturday, May 8.
 
After faltering in game one, the Shockers responded emphatically in game two, clobbering four home runs on their way to the 11-1, eight-inning victory.
 
Hunter Gibson paced WSU in the nightcap, going a career-best 4-for-5 with a pair of homers, a double and six RBI, while Jack Sigrist added a trio of hits, including a home run and double, and Seth Stroh tallied three hits, including a triple.
 
Corrigan Bartlett also homered in the contest and drove in two runs, respectively.
 
Freshman right-hander Jace Kaminska continued his dominance on the mound, improving to 6-0 on the season after tossing six innings and allowing just one earned run on five hits with six strikeouts and one walk.
 
Wichita State didn't waste any time getting the bad taste of the game one setback out of their mouths, scoring four runs in the first and two in the second to race out to a 6-0 advantage.
 
Gibson provided the opening three runs of the game, belting a three-run shot to center, before Chuck Ingram drove in Bartlett on an RBI single to right field for the fourth run of the frame.
 
A Paxton Wallace sacrifice fly and Bartlett RBI single up the middle plated two in the second, building the Shocker lead to 6-0.
 
WSU added a run on a Gibson RBI ground out in the sixth, before UCF got on the scoreboard in the seventh on a solo home run.
 
Wichita State put the game away utilizing the long ball in the top of the eighth, homering three times in an inning for the first time since 2008, before reliever Aaron Bechtel threw a scoreless bottom-half of the inning, securing the run-rule victory. 
 
Sigrist opened the inning with a leadoff, solo homer off the foul pole down the left field line, prior to Gibson crushing a two-run round-tripper to right field, and Bartlett smashing a solo homer to left for the four runs in the eighth.
 
It was Sigrist's third home run of the season and second of the day, as he went deep in game one, and Gibson and Bartlett's fifth homers of 2021.

The four home runs in game two were four of a season-best 19 hits in the contest.
 
John Montes went 2-for-4, while Connor Allen homered, pacing the Knights in the nightcap.
 
UCF starter Kenny Serwa (2-4) suffered the loss after allowing six earned runs on six hits with one strikeout in 1 2/3 innings of work.