“It was a must win game.” The words of Florida freshman second baseman Dalton Guthrie who knew it was important for the Florida baseball team to avoid a three game sweep Sunday afternoon and that’s what it did in a 10-1 win against Kentucky. Florida head coach Kevin O’Sullivan was pleased with the performance. “You can look at it one of two ways; we’ve lost the last two out of three, or we’ve won our last seven out of nine. I’m going to go with the rally that we had last night that gave us
momentum going into today. I thought we played the way we are capable today, did what we needed to do, pitched much better and swung the bats much better.” Florida fell behind early giving up a run to Kentucky in the second inning when Zach Arnold drove in a run. UF starter Alex Faedo would settle in dealing 5.1 innings allowing just the one run. Faedo had this to say about his outing. “I felt great. We needed a big win, so I knew I had to give us a good start to keep us in contention in the SEC. I’m just trying to throw strikes. We’re really deep in the bullpen, so I tried to give us five good innings to keep us in the game.” The Orange and Blue found something it had lost most of the weekend; offense. UF freshmen and former high school teammates Mike Rivera and Dalton Guthrie combined for five RBI Sunday afternoon. Guthrie also grabbed his first triple of the year in the game. Florida put the game out of reach in the fifth when Rivera drove a ball off the left-field wall to give the Gators a 7-1 advantage. From there the Gators put it in cruise control, eventually expanding their lead to 10 to 1 in the seventh. Faedo picked up a big win, a win Kevin O’Sullivan said may have earned him a spot as the Saturday starter. The Gators will be off this week before hitting the road on the weekend to face Georgia. Sound from the game Kevin O’Sullivan 3 Alex Faedo 1 Dalton Guthrie 1 Dalton Guthrie 2 Mike Rivera Mike Rivera 2 Kevin O’Sullivan 1 Kevin O’Sullivan