The No. 15 Gators defeated North Florida 3-1 at Florida Ballpark on Wednesday night thanks to their second dominant pitching performance in as many nights.
After limiting Stetson to just three hits on Tuesday, UF’s three pitchers scattered eight hits against the Ospreys, with only one of them going for extra bases. They struck out 13 batters and issued just three free passes.
Flame-throwing righty Brandon Sproat made the start and gave up just one run and four hits in a career-high five innings. He struck out a career-high eight batters.
“Really pleased with how he started, and that’s another arm that gives us a chance,” UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “Whether he stays in the midweek or not, I don’t know, but, tonight, he threw really good, and, the first four innings, his command was outstanding, and his stuff’s good enough to get anybody out the way he pitched tonight. I’m really pleased with his start.”
Sidewinder Blake Purnell took over to start the sixth and pitched 1 2/3 innings without giving up a run.
Ryan Slater took over with runners on the corners and two outs in the seventh and nailed down his second save of the brief campaign. Four of the seven outs he recorded were via strikeouts.
Offensively, the Gators went dormant over the second half of the game for the third home game in a row, but they did just enough early to win the game. Colby Halter was the only Gator with multiple hits, including a two-run home run off of the batter’s eye in straightaway center that wound up providing the Gators with the winning runs.
Through five games, the Gators are hitting just .232 as a team and scoring five runs per game. That’s disappointing in several ways for O’Sullivan. Obviously, scoring more runs would give them a better chance of winning, but it would also allow him to use these midweek games against weaker competition as a chance to get some young players some playing time. There are still several freshmen who haven’t gotten into a game yet.
“Our offense has got to get going a little bit more,” O’Sullivan said. “I know we had a good night the first night of the year and then [Tuesday] night was a good night offensively, but it’s really hard. Like, Rene Lastres, I want to get him in the game. We’ve got three really talented outfielders; I want to get them some at bats. We’ve got a lot of young pitchers. Other than the first game of the year and then last night, everything’s been a two-run ballgame.
“It’s making it a little bit difficult. We’ve got to kind of spread ourselves out and give us some room so we can get some of these young pitchers out there to get some experience without it being so pressure-packed.
“At some point, some of our older players are going to have to start swinging the bat a little bit better. We did not have aggressive swings tonight in advantage counts. We only struck out twice, but, quite honestly, our swings were not real aggressive tonight.”
Halter has been one of the few bright spots to start the year offensively. He’s recorded at least one hit in every game, and he’s now 4-for-9 over the last two games. He’s confident that his teammates will soon join him.
“You’re not going to hit and score eight runs every single game,” Halter said. “So, defense and pitching is really super important, and I was proud to see those guys tonight step up and pitch well, and we played clean defense. That’s a good recipe to win a lot of ballgames for sure.
“One through nine in our lineup, we’re all super good hitters. It’s really one of the most stacked lineups I’ve ever been a part of. We’re going to find our rhythm for sure. It’s just getting through these times right now early in the year, and, hopefully, we start getting hot at the right time.”
Florida (3-2) got the scoring started in the bottom of the second inning without notching a hit. Wyatt Langford drew a leadoff walk from North Florida starter Darin Kilfoyl. He advanced to second on a wild pitch and went to third on BT Riopelle’s groundout to second. Tucker Talbott scored him with a groundout to short.
After an 0-for-11 start to the season, Kendrick Calilao finally got into the hit column with a leadoff double that deflected off of left fielder Brock Edge’s glove in the third inning.
It looked like the Gators were content to play small ball again when Deric Fabian dropped down a perfectly executed sacrifice bunt that moved Calilao to third base with only one out.
Halter had other ideas. With the count at 2-0, he unloaded on a thigh-high fastball on the outer part of the plate. The ball deflected off of the left edge of the batter’s eye for Halter’s fourth career homer and his first of 2022.
“It’s a pretty deep ballpark to center,” he said. “I’ve hit a couple balls pretty good dead center that hit off the top or something, just sneak out, but I got it pretty good for sure, so it felt good.”
The Ospreys (1-4) threatened to put together a huge inning in the fifth. Cade Westbrook led off with a single down the left-field line. Blake Pound followed with a hard-hit single up the middle. Grant Grodi then chopped a pitch back to the mound. Sproat extended his glove to try to make a play on it, but he ended up deflecting it into shallow right field for a single that loaded the bases with nobody out.
Sproat bounced back by striking out Tyler Gerteisen and Dallen Leach to put himself in a position to throw up another zero. Instead, he walked Aidan Sweatt on four pitches to score the Ospreys’ first (and only) run of the game.
He escaped further damage by getting Edge, a former Gator, to ground out to second.
“I knew I just had to attack the zone and let my defense work,” Sproat said. “Ended up getting the two outs there and just kind of lost it for that third one, but I was able to get through it without letting it snowball, only giving up one.”
The Ospreys had several opportunities to score against UF’s bullpen, but Purnell and Slater made big pitches when they needed to.
A single, a stolen base and a throwing error by Riopelle put a runner on third with two outs in the sixth. Purnell got out of the inning unscathed with a groundout to second.
“He’s been great,” O’Sullivan said. “He’s been open-minded. We changed his [arm] slot, and David [Kopp’s] worked awfully hard with him on that. It’s huge. It’s valuable. You see the last two nights, it’s just a different look. I think with him and [Nick Ficarrotta], they’ve both been really, really good. The middle part of those innings, and they can sink it and throw their slider for strikes. They both have changeups for the lefties.
“That’s invaluable to get three, four, five, six outs in the sixth and seventh inning, and it just shortens the game and gives you a chance to go to Ryan or somebody else.”
A hit batter and a single by Sweatt put runners on the corners with two outs in the seventh and led to Slater’s entrance. His first pitch bounced in the dirt and allowed Sweatt to advance to second base and put the potential tying run in scoring position.
Edge lined a 1-0 fastball by Slater hard, but he hit it right to Talbott in right field for the third out.
Westbrook doubled down the left-field line with two outs in the eighth, but Slater struck out Pound swinging to end the inning.
Slater gave up a one-out single to Drew Leinenbach in the ninth, but he struck out Rafael Santos and Sweatt to end the game.
It wasn’t a pretty night for the Gators offensively, but they found a way to win anyway. Given the way that their opening series with Liberty went, they’ll take it.
“You have to learn to win in different ways, and there’s going to be stretches where you don’t hit as well as you want,” O’Sullivan said. “It’s part of the game. There’s going to be stretches where we don’t pitch as well as we want; it’s part of the game. One thing we have been doing, we’ve been getting better at is not allowing the free passes for the most part, and we’ve been playing really good defense.
“So, if that stuff stays the way it’s going and we don’t give free passes and we play good defense, it just gives us time to get the offense going the way we think it’s going to get going.”