Florida Gators dominate in Regional opener

Logan Shore was brilliant and the Florida Gators’ bats came out early in Florida’s first NCAA Tournament win since 2012, as the Gators (45-16) gave FAMU (23-24) a rough welcome to the Gainesville Regional in a 19-0 thrashing.

The Gators scored one run in the second inning and five more in the fifth, more than enough for Shore, who cruised on Friday night throwing just five innings, striking out two and walking two.

The Gators needed some time to adjust to Page, who was throwing in the mid 70s to low 80s.

“The game is obviously always about making adjustments,” Harrison Bader said after the game. “The pitcher kind of dictates that and tonight was just another example of that.”

Page struck out the side in the first inning before Pete Alonso opened things up in the second inning with a single. JJ Schwarz and Jeremy Vasquez followed that up with singles of their own to load the bases with no outs. Mike Rivera — who would leave the game in the sixth inning after getting hit with a pitch in the left knee — opened the scoring up with a sacrifice fly.

Florida pounced on the Rattlers for five runs on just three hits in the third. Despite not registering an extra base hit, the Gators were able to manufacture runs with singles and good approaches at the plate.

Shore surrendered two hits in the fourth inning but that is all that the Rattlers could muster up. Florida turned to Frank Rubio and Shaun Anderson the rest of the way and the duo would only allow two base runners (one hit batter and one base hit) the rest of the way.

Florida continued to pour it on a Florida A&M team that was making their first NCAA Regional appearance in school history.

“It was too much Florida, unfortunately,” FAMU manager Jamey Shouppe said. “It was too much orange and blue, it was too much Gators.”

The Gators added three in the fifth, two in the sixth, two in the seventh and six in the eight inning to wind up with a score of 19-0.

Freshman JJ Schwarz was 4-5, scored three runs and had five RBI.

“JJ Schwarz, we knew that, that was no surprise,” Shouppe said. “The dude’s hit four home runs in one game [this season].”

The Gators had 11 different batters record a RBI on Friday night, the highest total of the season.

Florida will take on USF tomorrow at 7 p.m. at McKethan Stadium.

Nick de la Torre
A South Florida native, Nick developed a passion for all things sports at a very young age. His love for baseball was solidified when he saw Al Leiter’s no-hitter for the Marlins live in May of 1996. He was able to play baseball in college but quickly realized there isn’t much of a market for short, slow outfielders that hit around the Mendoza line. Wanting to continue with sports in some capacity he studied journalism at the University of Central Florida. Nick got his first start in the business as an intern for a website covering all things related to the NFL draft before spending two seasons covering the Florida football team at Bleacher Report. That job led him to GatorCountry. When he isn’t covering Gator sports, Nick enjoys hitting way too many shots on the golf course, attempting to keep up with his favorite t.v. shows and watching the Heat, Dolphins and Marlins. Follow him on twitter @NickdelatorreGC