The Florida baseball team fell to 32 -12 and 12-8 in SEC play after losing a hard fought 7-6 game to Kentucky Saturday night. Kentucky will take a 2-0 series lead into Sunday’s Game 3 at 12:30 pm.
The Orange and Blue had to claw their way back in this game after trailing 4-0 after the second inning. Starter Dane Dunning allowed the four runs after hitting three batters in the frame. Dunning only lasted 1.1 innings on the hill.
Offensively Florida struggled against UK starter Dustin Beggs who threw 122 pitches against 32 UF batters. Florida’s JJ Schwarz and Mike Rivera brought a couple runs home on sacrifice flies in the second inning to cut the lead to 4-2.
UF head coach Kevin O’Sullivan was impressed with the Kentucky pitcher.
“I thought after the second inning we were going to get to him but he just got better as the game went on; his breaking ball got better and he got stronger as the game went on. Credit him because he stayed out there for more than 120 pitches, battled and did a good job.”
It was a quiet few innings before Kentucky broke the silence in the sixth inning with two home runs in two pitches from UF’s Aaron Rhodes.
Heading into the ninth inning Florida trailed by five runs but rallied to almost win the game.
After a leadoff hit from hit from Josh Tobias, Pete Alonso doubled him home. A walk and a single loaded the bases . Pinch hitter Jeremy Vasquez hit a two run single and a run scoring hit from Buddy Reed and a throwing error put runners on second and third with two outs. Florida’s Richie Martin stepped in with two outs and a squeeze play was called but it was not executed and Kentucky got the final out of the game when pinch runner Taylor Lane was thrown out at the plate.
Florida third baseman Josh Tobias said the rally was good for team’s confidence.
“We just have to take what we did positively into tomorrow’s game. We battled back and never gave up. We put some good swings on the ball late in some pressure situations. We need to carry that into tomorrow and use it as motivation.”
UF will look to take Game Three where it has Alex Faedo on the hill.
Sound from the game