The Kentucky Wildcat baseball team won the rubber game of a three game series Sunday in Gainesville, beating the Florida Gators 6-2. This is the first time in 14 years the Wildcats have won a series at Florida. Junior lefty Corey Littrell started on the mound for Kentucky, pitching eight innings, allowing only one run on 10 hits, while fanning seven and walking no one. Gator head coach Kevin O’Sullivan said that Littrell showed he was one of the better pitchers in the league during Sunday’s game.
Eric Hanhold started on the mound for the Gators, working 3.2 innings, allowing 10 hits and five runs, walking one and striking out three. Lefty Daniel Gibson replaced him in a two-out jam in the fourth, working a career-high 3.1 innings. Gibson didn’t allow any hits and walked two with three strikeouts. Mike Vinson relieved Gibson in the eighth to finish the game.
Kentucky started swinging the bats early in the second inning when Jeff Boehm drew a walk with one out, and Kyle Barrett followed with a single. Michael Thomas stepped to the plate and hit a three-run homer over the wall in left to give the Wildcats a 3-0 lead. O’Sullivan said the Gators let the game get away from them early.
Kentucky added another run in the third when A.J. Riddle singled to left, and then Boehm smashed a double off the left field wall allowing Riddle to score from first. This resulted in a 4-0 lead.
UK’s Matt Reida started the fourth with a double into right field, and he went to third on a grounder by Austin Cousino. Zac Zellers then singled to score Reida which gave Kentucky a 5-0 lead.
The Gators finally scored in the bottom of the fifth. Connor Mitchell singled to lead off which was soon erased on a 4-6-3 double play. Harrison Bader followed with a deep infield single. Justin Shafer singled and pushed Bader to third, and Vickash Ramjit singled to left field to score Bader, bringing the score to 5-1.
The Wildcats added one more run in the eighth. Barrett drew a leadoff walk, taking second on Thomas’ sacrifice bunt. Reida then hit a single through the right side to score Barrett.
With the score at 6-1, Florida got a run in the ninth as Cody Dent singled and scored on Justin Shafer’s two-out single. Despite only getting two runs, O’Sullivan said that the offensive approach for Sunday’s game was a lot better than the day before.
The 9-12 Gators will host UNF Tuesday night. The game is set to start at 7 p.m.