After a promising opening game, UCF lost their C-USA opening series in Houston this past weekend.

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Game 1 on Friday night looked good, as UCF beat the Cougars, 7-4, to extend their winning streak to six games.

The offense exploded late, scoring 3 runs in the eighth and 2 runs in the ninth. Ryan Breen hit the only home run of the game, a two-run shot, pinch-hitting for DH Chris Taladay in the ninth. SS Darnell Sweeney had the only multi-hit performance for the Knights, with two hits.

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The team’s fortuned turned on Saturday as they lost to the Cougars, 7-3.

Johnny Sedlock and Chase Bradford each gave up three earned runs. RF Shane Brown and 1B Austin Johnson each went 3-for-4.

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The series was punctuated with a 20-3 loss on Sunday. On the bright side, LF Chris Duffy extended his hitting streak to 16 games.

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UCF, who is currently 15-10 overall, returns home tomorrow night at 6:30pm to begin a home-and-home with Bethune-Cookman. As part of tomorrow night’s festivities, new UCF men’s basketball head coach Donnie Jones will be at the Baseball Complex starting at 5:30pm for a meet-and-greet with fans, and will throw out the first pitch for the game.

In my previous report, I forgot a third high-rated signing from Central Florida going to UCF, DT Andrew Rice of Lake Mary. They also got WR Cornelius Whitehead and CB Jordan Ozerities from Mount Dora.

Orlando Sentinel is reporting that UCF got a coup getting two of their major signings to de-committ from other colleges and sign with them. One is the aforementioned Torrian Wilson, who previously had a verbal commitment to Stanford. They also got DL Jose Jose of Miami Central, who originally committed verbally to South Florida.

It is a two-way street though. One of UCF’s verbal commitments, Miami Central RB Brandon Gainer, de-committed from the Knights and signed with Kentucky today.

According to ESPN’s Signing Day tracker, UCF signee Jeffrey Godfrey of Miami Central also de-committed from another school, but the Sentinel did not cover him in their article, and ESPN does not track exactly where de-commitments are from. He was also scouted by USF, FSU, Miami, Georgia and Tennessee.

It came down this afternoon that Gaines Adams, 4th overall draft pick in 2006 by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and current Chicago Bears defensive end, died suddenly this morning at his home in South Carolina. He was only 26.

The former All American from Clemson appeard to have had a massive heart attack. Preliminary autopsy reports show he had an enlarged heart, something that also recently killed a college basketball player. This physical defect, which usually goes undetected until it is too late, has killed several athletes, most prominently Hank Gathers, a basketball player from Loyola Marymount University who was felled right before March Madness in 1990.

The final cause of death is pending toxicology, but doctors do not expect to find anything in it.

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As you know, relief efforts are underway after the earthquake in Haiti last week. I have personally donated to the effort, and recommend the American Red Cross (choose Haiti Relief and Development at this link), UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders as charities of choice for the relief effort. An easy way to donate to the Red Cross is to text the word “HAITI” to the number 90999. A charge of $10 will be added to your cell phone bill, in addition to any text charges you may normally incur.

Another way to help Haiti in the long term would be to book cruises with Royal Caribbean that visit their private resort area at Labadee, Haiti. The area is staffed predominantly by Haitians, and currently 100% of revenue for visits to Labadee are going directly to the relief effort. Royal Caribbean is also stocking ships visiting Labadee with relief supplies which are then being distributed at nearby Cap-Haitien via its partner charity, Food for the Poor. The Freedom of the Seas, which transferred to Port Canaveral last year, visits Labadee during its Western Caribbean cruises.

For more information on Royal Caribbean’s part in the relief effort, click here.

Disclaimer: The mention of Royal Caribbean is not paid for in any fashion. It was an unpaid endorsement, as I am a customer.

Early on, about half-way into the game, UCF was down to Rice, 19-10. Head coach Kirk Speraw called timeout, and reamed his players.

They responded with a 23-2 run, and never looked back, beating Rice, 77.58.

Keith Clanton led the way with 17 points. A.J. Rompza had 13 points, 6 assists and 5 steals.

The UCF bench outscored the Rice bench, 36-12. They won the rebound battle 35-28, part of why they were up early, but we won the assist (21-10) and steals (9-5) matchups handily.

Over the entire game, we outshot them 56%-39%. We also made 11 threes.

UCF returns to action Wednesday night at home against Marshall. Game time is 8pm, and they will have Blue Man Group as their halftime show so bring some plastic ponchos. The game will be shown on CBS College Sports.

The Orlando Titans, our brand new National Lacrosse League team, beat up and defeated the Philadelphia Wings, 13-8, before a boisterous announced crowd of 8,145. I have written up a game recap at Bleacher Report.

Now to tell you first-hand about the experience.

There were a surprising number of vendors open. most of the inside food and merchandise vendors were open. T-shirts were $18, golf shirts $25, jerseys $115 (and tons of items in between).

There were a surprising number of Philadelphia Wings fans in attendance. I guess the KiXX aren’t the only minor-league team that gets a lot of run in the City of Brotherly Love.

As the goals piled up, the crowd really got behind the Titans. The chanting began early in the third quarter. During the second TV timeout of the third quarter, someone got the wave going. And when the fighting started, the place exploded.

I hope more people in Orlando discover the Titans. Indoor lacrusse is even better than I hoped or dreamed for.

The Orlando Titans have also announced their first public in-arena practice.

On New Year’s Day, they will have their first practice event in Amway Arena. The practice will be from 11am until 12:30pm, after which will be a player meet-and-greet until 1pm.

Season tickets can be picked up during the event, and some merchandise will be available. Admission and parking are free. Use Lot 3, at Parramore and Concord (north side of the Arena).

UCF’s football program has done it again in the classroom.

The American Football Coaches Association has named 41 Division I FBS programs that have graduated at least 75% of their football student-athletes. UCF is on the list. Conference USA has six schools on the list, tied with the Big Ten for the most teams on the list.

Seven of our current season’s football players have already earned their bachelor’s degrees, which ranks us 10th overall in the Bowl Subdivision.

As you prepare to buy tickets, here is what the pricing is. The picture is direct from the Titans website.

I’m sure they won’t mind, since it’s free publicity and advertising.

Tickets go on sale tomorrow morning at 10:00am EST.

The term used by the UCF Athletics website, “hold off”, is quite apt to the back-and-forth affair for the men’s basketball team last night. But in the end we prevailed, beating Albany, 76-72.

Dave Diakite was the star with a career-high 21 points, going with 8 rebounds. Isaac Sosa added 13, and Taylor Young added 10 as well as 4 assists.

It was a very close game. Both teams were tied on rebounds (29-29) and turnovers (12-12). The two places where we had the advantage were personal fouls (11 for us, 17 for them) and three-pointers (7-17 for us, 3-12 for them). Isaac Sosa hit 3 three-pointers, while Marcus Jordan provided 2 more.

Next game for the men’s basketball team is Newberry, Tuesday night at 7pm at UCF Arena. Former UCF assistant coach Steve DeMeo is the head coach at that school.

First up, we’d like to congratulate senior wideout Rocky Ross on earning second-team Academic All-American status from ESPN the Magazine and the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).

Ross will enter the Tulane game 14 yards shy of the top ten in UCF History in career receiving yards (currently 1,894). Two good games, he could finish with 2,000 yards. Ross is seeking a degree in criminal justice, and has a cumulative GPA of 3.88.

He is the second Knight ever selected an Academic All-American. The first was defensive lineman Keith Shologan in 2007.

According to the latest NCAA data, UCF’s football program has an Academic Progress Rate of 960 (out of 1000), tying it for 23rd with LSU in all of Division I (all subdivisions) and placing it 9th among non-military public institutions.

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As for this weekend, UCF looks to improve its bowl standing at Alabama-Birmingham on Saturday afternoon at 1:30pm EST. You can of course listen on 740 AM the Game, or watch on Bright House Sports Network. The team is focused on UAB, and not which bowl they may end up at. The way head coach George O’Leary looks at it, right now UAB is their bowl game.

But the football team isn’t the only game in town on Saturday. After watching/listening to the football game, head to the UCF Arena at 5pm as the 4-1 men’s basketball team returns home to face Albany in non-conference action.