Gators Host Rival FSU In Sunshine State Battle

The No. 1 ranked Florida Gator baseball team (17-1) welcomes the No. 11 ranked Florida State Seminoles (13-3) to McKethan Stadium Tuesday night for a sunshine state battle. Florida comes into this game riding an 11 game winning streak after sweeping Harvard this past weekend. The Seminoles are coming off a series sweep as well taking all three games at home over Georgia Tech, pushing FSU’s win streak to five games.

Florida’s pitching was on a tear this past weekend highlighted by Alex Faedo’s 13 strikeout performance Saturday night. Faedo had a perfect game through six innings before giving up a single in the 7th. Faedo pitched 8.1 innings while striking out thirteen and giving up just two hits moving him to 4-0 on the season. Faedo was also named SEC pitcher of the week for the first time in his career.

Congrats to #Gators' RHP Alex Faedo, named as one of Louisville Slugger Players of the Week by @CBNewspaper – 13 K over 8.1 IP on Saturday

— Gator Baseball (@GatorsBB) March 14, 2016

The bats were hot for the Gators this past weekend as well as they posted a season high 16 runs on Friday night and a collective 27 runs over the whole weekend. Freshman Deacon Liput continues to shine as he has reached base in every single game this season. Junior Pete Alonso led the way though going 8-10 on the weekend while driving in five RBI and hitting a team leading eighth double.

Last season the Seminoles took the reular season series over the Gators 2-1 but Florida got their redemption. In the NCAA super regional’s the Gators swept FSU defeating them 13-5 and 11-4. Florida head coach Kevin OSullivan says despite the rivarly hell go into this game no different.

The Seminoles will send freshman southpaw Tyler Holton (0-1, 2.77 ERA) to the mound to go up against Gator sophomore Dane Dunning. Dunning is 1-0 on the season with a 4.71 ERA. Florida State assistant coach Mike Martin Jr talks about what makes Holton an effective pitcher.

First pitch from McKethan Stadium is set for 7 p.m. but you can tune into ESPN Gainesville 95.3 at 6:55 p.m. to hear Steve Russell and Jeff Cardozzas on the call.