Florida Baseball Comes Back to Beat Florida State, 6-3

The fans really put the rowdy in Rowdy Reptiles on Tuesday, when a packed Condron Family Ballpark helped No. 23 Florida take down No. 20 Florida State 6-3.

Florida (15-3) was facing a two-score deficit and were scoreless in the third inning. That wouldn’t last long. Ethan Surowiec singled for an RBI to score Kyle Jones. Cash Strayer and Jacob Kendall also produced in the five-run inning with each hitting two-run singles for a 5-2 lead.

FSU (13-3) made it a 5-3 game with a run in the fourth.

Brendan Lawson settled the final margin when he homered to give Florida a 6-3 lead going in the sixth, his team-leading ninth homer of the season.

Now coming back from a struggling performance the pitchers stepped up and knew what to do. The Gators struck out a season-high 18 batters and notched the final 11 outs of the game via strikeouts. 

Russell Sandefer, Jackson Barberi, Ernesto Lugo-Canchola and Joshua Whritenour racked up 16 strikeouts against four walks out of the bullpen.

“I thought Russ is getting better. He’s getting closer, he just needs a couple more outings to get there,” UF coach Kevein O’Sullivan said. “But I thought he battled.”

Lugo-Canchola  and Writenour combined to blank FSU as Whritenour struck out two straight Seminoles in the final two innings before 6,548 fans.

Schuyler Sandford made his first career start on the mound this game. The redshirt sophomore allowed two earned runs on three walks in 1 ⅓ innings while striking out two batters. Luke McNeillie (2-0) took over when Sandford got in trouble in the second and went 2 2/3 innings with one earned run allowed on three hits and one walk. He also struck out three to set up UF’s relief quartet.

“They’re going to have to grow up in a hurry, because now we have SEC play, too,” O’Sullivan said about the freshmen play. “We also turn around and play Stetson next Tuesday, who just split with Arkansas at Arkansas. Everybody’s starting to play a little bit better.”

FSU freshman reliever Kevin Mebil (1-1) was charged with three earned runs on two hits and one walk in one-third of an inning for the loss.

The Gators are now 130-135-1 all-time against Florida State, including winning 25 of the last 33 meetings.

Florida will open SEC play this weekend with a three-game home series against South Carolina (12-6).

Category: Baseball, College Baseball, Feature Sports News, Gators Baseball