Big inning sinks Gators in series-opening loss to Tennessee

Life without Hunter Barco didn’t get off to a good start for the Gators on Friday night.

With their third-year southpaw ace sidelined indefinitely with elbow discomfort, redshirt freshman righty Ryan Slater got the ball against Tennessee for his second career start.

He stranded a couple of baserunners to hang a zero in the first inning, but the second inning was a nightmare for him and the Gators. The Volunteers took advantage of some shaky defense by UF to pile up seven runs on five hits despite only hitting two balls hard in the inning.

That ended up being more than enough offense for Tennessee, as their three pitchers limited the Gators to just three hits.

The combination of a horrendous inning by Slater and the defense and a dormant offense allowed the No. 1 Volunteers to run away with the series opener by a score of 8-2 at the newly renamed Condron Family Ballpark.

“I don’t really know what to say at this point,” UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “It’s disappointing. We had four walks, two hit by [pitches]. Two of the four walks were leadoff walks again. We had the big inning.

“We’ve got to do a better job with the leadoff man. It’s really that simple.”

Jordan Beck, Trey Lipscomb and Cortland Lawson all registered multiple hits for Tennessee, and starter Chase Burns gave up just one earned run on two hits in 6 1/3 innings to get credit for the win.

As has often been the case this year, the second-inning onslaught began with a leadoff walk, this time to Luc Lipcius. Evan Russell followed by sharply grounding an 0-1 pitch just past third baseman Deric Fabian and into the corner for a double. Christian Moore opened the scoring with a softly hit blooper that fell in front of right fielder Sterlin Thompson.

Lawson lined a full-count pitch to right field. Once again, the ball dropped in front of Thompson for an RBI single. Thompson then misplayed the ball and allowed it to roll well past him, which allowed another run to score to make it 3-0.

Three batters later, with runners on the corners and one out, Beck hit a blooper that Thompson didn’t appear to see at first. It fell in for yet another softly hit RBI single.

It looked like Slater was going to limit the damage to just four runs and keep his offense within striking distance. He got Drew Gilbert to pop out for out No. 2, and he jumped ahead of Lipscomb 0-2. However, he didn’t quite get enough depth on a breaking ball, and Lipscomb lined it onto the left-field berm for a three-run homer that made it 7-0.

That was pretty much the game at that point.

“Tennessee did a good job of slowing the game down, which is what they wanted,” catcher BT Riopelle said. “We do well when we’re at a good tempo, at our pace. We were at their pace. They stuck it to us tonight.”

Florida (23-15, 6-10 SEC) broke onto the scoreboard in the bottom of the third. Colby Halter reached via a one-out error, and Jud Fabian followed by drawing a walk from Burns. They both stole their way into scoring position, and Thompson brought home Halter with a groundout to first.

Tennessee (35-3, 15-1) got that run back in the fifth when Lawson lofted a sacrifice fly with runners on the corners and one out.

Mac Guscette completed the scoring by sending a 1-1 pitch from Burns into the Volunteers’ bullpen in left-center field to lead off the fifth.

“Their pitching was really good tonight,” O’Sullivan said. “Their starter was good. He threw a bunch of cutters, kept the ball off the barrel, and then they came with the hard-throwing right-hander with [Ben] Joyce, and then they came in with the lefty, [Redmond Walsh], at the end. So, they had three different looks, and they pitched really well.”

The lone positive for the Gators was the performances of a couple of seldom-used arms. Despite entering the game with a 2.84 earned run average, freshman Anthony Ursitti had only pitched 6 1/3 innings spanning seven appearances this season.

He shut down one of the nation’s top offenses for 3 2/3 innings on Friday night, giving up just one hit and striking out three batters while not issuing a walk. His ERA is now down to 1.80.

“He was just throwing the ball across the plate,” O’Sullivan said. “He’s been eager to get back out there some more. We’ve had a couple talks, and he’s kind of voiced that he wants to have some more opportunities, and, certainly, tonight, he took advantage of it for sure.”

His classmate, Fisher Jameson, made his collegiate debut with two runners on and one out in the ninth. He retired both of the batters that he faced to escape the jam.

Ursitti and Jameson’s performances could give O’Sullivan some more options to work with on the weekends moving forward, and they also kept the rest of the bullpen as fresh as possible by eating up some innings.

The Gators will send Brandon Sproat to the mound to try to even up the series on Saturday at 6:30.

“We’ve just got to put this one behind us and get ready to play [on Saturday],” O’Sullivan said. “I’m looking forward to getting Brandon back out there.”

Ethan Hughes
Ethan was born in Gainesville and has lived in the Starke, Florida, area his entire life. He played basketball for five years and knew he wanted to be a sportswriter when he was in middle school. He’s attended countless Gators athletic events since his early childhood, with baseball being his favorite sport to attend. He’s a proud 2019 graduate of the University of Florida and a 2017 graduate of Santa Fe College. He interned with the University Athletic Association’s communications department for 1 ½ years as a student and also wrote for InsideTheGators.com for two years before joining Gator Country in 2021. He is a long-suffering fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars. You can follow him on Twitter @ethanhughes97.