The Florida Gators’ fifth week of fall ball featured a 14-inning double header exhibition on Sunday afternoon at Condron Ballpark. The Gators took the first seven inning game by a score of 5-0 while USF won game two 2-0.
“Pitching and defense was good,” head coach Kevin O’Sullivan said postgame. “It has improved from last year, certainly on the mound. It was productive, obviously we would have liked to swing the bats a little better in the second game.”
Florida’s bats started off red-hot as OF Kyle Jones and INF Colby Shelton blasted back-to-back home runs in the bottom of the first. The Gators would tack on three more runs in the 2nd inning behind RBI singles from Brody Donay and Kyle Jones, while getting some help from USF’s defense.
This was the end of Florida’s scoring on Sunday afternoon as the Gator bats went ice cold, failing to plate a run in their final 12 trips to the plate while totaling just three hits during that span.
Florida threatened in several innings in game two behind five walks and several HBP from USF’s pitching staff but couldn’t come up with the big hit when they needed it. O’Sullivan attributed their lack of success to chasing too many pitches and putting the ball in the air too much. The Gators only struck out seven times across 14 innings.
“Our approaches were not very good in the second game,” head coach Kevin O’Sullivan said postgame. “We had been swinging the bat well the entire fall.”
The positive is that Florida’s pitching staff dominated outside of a singular inning that got away from freshman left hander McCall Biemiller. In a combined 14 innings pitched, Gator pitchers allowed just two runs on five hits and 10 walks while striking out 16 batters. While the walk number is higher than head coach Kevin O’Sullivan wanted to see, he was pleased with the way his young staff worked through some of the command issues to finish innings.
“Couple walks here and there, but for the most part they didn’t let the inning get away from them other than the one inning in the third,” O’Sullivan said.
Florida’s game one starter, sophomore RHP Liam Peterson, was as good as I’ve seen him this fall, retiring six of his seven batters faced while picking up three strikeouts in two scoreless innings.
“Liam has taken a step forward, you can see his stuff and his mound presence is different,” O’Sullivan said on Peterson. “Everything’s better. He’s landed his breaking ball now, it’s a really, really tight spinner, I think it like 2,800 spin rate, he’s got a slider, he’s always had the feel for the changeup, and now he’s pitching at 95-98 and he’s throwing a lot more strikes. He’s certainly on his way.”
O’Sullivan used an army of freshmen pitcher’s vs USF and got strong efforts from RHP Aidan King and RHP Joshua Whritenour.
King threw two scoreless innings, allowing no walks and just one hit while striking out three batters.
“He’s had a really good fall for us,” O’Sullivan said on King. “There’s a reason we game him two innings today…we had felt like he earned the opportunity to do that. He’s been really consistent. His mound presence is different than maybe most of the freshman we’ve had in the last couple of years. I was pleased with the way he threw.”
Florida starts the 2025 season with a three-game series against Air Force from Feb. 14-16.