The Florida baseball team won the first game of a three game set against Missouri Friday night 7-1. The Gators were lead by a pair of young guns. Freshmen Logan Shore and Peter Alonso carried the weight for Florida Friday night in route to UF’s 28th win this season.
Florida jumped ahead early in the second inning after a strange sequence of events. With one out, Alonso drove a 2-2 pitch up the middle scoring Taylor Gushue and Braden Mattson. This play succeeded a controversial Missouri triple play that was eventually overturned after a series of arguments between Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan and the officiating crew.
The Orange and Blue added to their lead in the third when Harrison Bader lined a chopper up the middle that scored Casey Turgeon from first. This marked Bader’s eighth RBI in his last five outings. Shortly after Bader was able to reach home himself, scoring from third via Braden Mattson’s team leading ninth sacrifice fly this season.
Peter Alonso struck again in the sixth when he launched a ball to the wall. Zack Powers scored from first on the play, resulting in Alonso’s game high third RBI. This wouldn’t be the end of Alonso’s night, as he drove in two more runs in the eighth.
Alonso was ready to make a comeback after disappointing defeats earlier this week.
“I was seeing the ball well tonight. I just wanted to come back from Tuesday and Wednesday. I wanted to make things happen. I wanted to drive my guys in instead of leaving them on base.”
The Florida pitching staff proved to be too much for the Tiger offense. Logan Shore showed the home fans why he was worthy of the Friday night slot. Shore went an impressive 7.1 innings allowing five hits and just a single run to score. Although Shore gave up three lead off hits in the game, he was able to compose himself and did not allow any of those runners to score. The 6 foot 1 righty racked up five K’s helping him earn his fifth victory this year.
Florida head coach Kevin O’Sullivan was impressed with his team’s performance.
“We beat a really good pitcher tonight. I don’t know how high in the draft he’s going to go, but he’s for sure going in the first couple of rounds anyways. I thought we had much better at bats; it’s amazing what 48 hours will do for you. We squared up some balls tonight. Obviously, the error there in the second inning by the second baseman helped us, but overall our at bats were better.”
With the win the Gators now lay claim to the top spot in the SEC standings. Game two against Missouri is set for tomorrow at 12. Listen in to the Gator IMG Sports Network where Mick Hubert and Jeff Cardozo will have the call.
Sound from the game can be heard below