The Florida baseball team uses a lot of hitting and enough pitching to defeat the South Carolina Gamecocks 14-3 Friday night in Gainesville in the first of a three game series. The Gators offense has scored 36 runs and gotten 39 hits in its last two games.
Gator coach Kevin O’Sullivan was pleased with the win.
“Tonight was big especially after the Missouri series where we only had nine hits the last two games but that’s baseball. Hitting’s contagious sometimes in a good way and sometimes in a bad way and it seems like things are kind of going our way right now. Kind of a weird game the way it started, both starters seemed to struggle a little bit; I mean we scored three and then turn around and give up two. Both guys were a little bit off and left the ball a little bit up.”
The Gators jumped out to an early lead in this one thanks to Harrison Bader hitting his team leading 10th home run in the bottom of the first to give Florida the 1-0 lead. Later, Jeremy Vasquez hit a two run single to push the cushion to 3-0.
Bader says getting out to an early lead is big for this team.
“The big thing about our hitting is when we get out ahead early we kind of seem to get things rolling so I got a good pitch and did what I did with it.”
The Gamecocks would answer back with two runs of their own in the second after sophomore Gene Cone hit a two-out single off of Logan Shore and Kyle Martin made it 3-2 with an RBI hit.
South Carolina would tie things up in the fifth inning. Bobby Poyner replaced Florida starter Logan Shore (4.0 IP, 8 H, 3 R) after Shore loaded the bases with no outs. Poyner would get the first batter he faced to hit into a double play to tie the game but a big inning was avoided.
Poyner talks about coming into the game in that situation.
“I knew it was a real turning point in the game. I had to jump ahead and throw strikes early. The goal was to get a strikeout or a double play.”
The Gators responded with five runs in the bottom half of the frame. Freshmen Christian Hicks got things going with a lead off home run to right field, his second long ball of the year. Harrison Bader, Buddy Reed, and JJ Schwarz all had RBI doubles in the inning as well.
Florida would add insurance runs the next couple innings that included Schwarz leading the seventh off with his fifth home run in the last two games. The Gamecocks wouldn’t score another run the rest of the game as Poyner, Shaun Anderson, and Frank Rubio didn’t surrender a single hit in five innings of relief work.
Game Two of this three game series will take place Saturday; you can catch the game live on ESPN 850 WRUF starting at 5;55 pm.
Sound from tonight’s game below: