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The No. 15 Florida Gators stayed hot Tuesday with an 11-3 win against South Carolina in the first round of the SEC Tournament.
It was an assault from the Gators’ bats, as they belted 13 hits and blasted three home runs out of Hoover Metropolitan Complex to advance to Wednesday night’s second round against No. 17 Ole Miss (37-18).
“I thought we played a pretty complete game,” UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “We swung the bats extremely well.”
It was another complete effort from a lineup that seems unstoppable against any opposing pitching staff — and Tuesday was no exception.
Trailing 1-0 in the second Bobby Boser launched a three-run homer straight over the center field wall to give Florida (38-19) a 3-1 lead. Boser’s 405-foot homer was his 16th of the year and temporarily tied him for the team lead with Brody Donay.
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“I take a lot of pride in being able to lead this offense, leading off the game and I think I do a pretty good job at getting the guys going,” Boser said.
That home run tie lasted all but an inning when Donay blasted an opposite-field rocket to give the Gators a 4-1 lead in the third. Florida followed with back-to-back doubles from Blake Cyr and Hayden Yost that widened the margin to 5-1.
With two outs and nobody on in the fourth, Brendan Lawson singled and scored after Ty Evans split the gap with an RBI double.
The scoring did not stop there, as Yost joined the home run party with a solo shot to extend Florida’s lead to 7-1 in the fifth. After South Carolina (28-29) cut the margin to four in the eighth, Florida responded with a four spot in the bottom of the inning to make it an insurmountable 11-3 lead.
“Anytime you can score after your opponent scores, I mean the momentum goes into the South Carolina dugout, and all of sudden it’s back in our dugout; so you know that inning was really important for us,” O’Sullivan said.
While the bats were putting up double-digit runs, the pitching staff cooked the Gamecocks. Florida sent Billy Barlow to the mound on Tuesday looking to get a start from the senior right-hander.
It was not an ideal start for Barlow, who allowed the first three hitters he faced to reach. However, with the bases loaded and nobody out, Barlow worked a ground-ball double play that got him out of the jam even though a run scored to give South Carolina a 1-0 lead.
From then on, Barlow looked in control and did not allow another run in his final 2.2 innings pitched.
It was just the start Florida needed, especially with a bullpen too limited to be used early. But after allowing back-to-back baserunners with two outs in the fourth, Barlow was pulled.
Called from the pen was Blaine Rowland, who got the first batter he saw to ground out. Rowland (1-0) continues to impress each time he takes the field for the Gators. Like starting pitcher Aidan King, the freshman never seems fazed by the moment — a trait that’s fueling his success.
“[Rowland] just continues to throw strikes and doesn’t hurt himself, he fields the position really well and it was really important to have a game like this today,” O’Sullivan said.
Rowland cruised through the fifth, sixth and seventh, before running into some trouble in the eighth. Christian Rodriguez relieved Rowland to finish out the final 1.2 innings.
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“We haven’t used Jake [Clemente] since last Thursday when he threw 29 pitches. We got our No. 1 going tomorrow in Liam [Peterson] and can extend Jacob if need be. We’re in as good a shape as can be pitching-wise going into tomorrow’s game,” O’Sullivan said.
With the first round in the books, Florida sets its sights on Ole Miss Rebels, who took two out of three against the Gators earlier this season.
“They’re a different — we played them early in the year, so it’s a totally different Ole Miss team and we’re a totally different Florida team. I don’t know how much we can take away from that series,” O’Sullivan said. “They’re talented. They’re older. I’m assuming they’re going to throw their No. 1. We’ve got Liam [Peterson] going for us. They’re well rested. They’ve had a great year. So we’ll just go out and play tomorrow and see how it goes.”
No. 10 seed Florida faces No. 7 seed Ole Miss at about 9 p.m. ET Wednesday after the threat of inclement weather pushed Tuesday night’s Texas A&M-Mississippi State game to a 10:30 a.m. start Wednesday. The UF game will air on the SEC Network and ESPN 98.1-FM/850-AM WRUF + WJXL 1010AM. A win would put the Gators in Friday’s 4 p.m. quarterfinals against two seed Arkansas (43-12), which is ranked No. 5 in the nation.
