Florida Gators podcast: Recruiting and diamond recaps

This GatorCountry podcast focuses on the Florida Gators baseball and softball teams, plus we recap the Gators recruiting weekend this past weekend.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre discuss the Gators newest commitment, plus how the rest of the visits went this past weekend for the Florida coaching staff.

Andrew and Nick recap the successful weekends for both the baseball and softball teams, as both swept their games over the weekend.

TRANSCRIPT:

Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? This is your man, Andrew Spivey, with my man, Nicholas de la Torre. What’s up, Nicholas?

Nick:                         Just happy to get baseball going. Baseball finally catching up to softball. Everyone’s successful, very successful winning weekend on the diamond, and a winning weekend in recruiting, even if it’s still a few years away.

Andrew:                 It was. It was a busy weekend, as you said. Baseball, softball got away. Florida didn’t really have a Junior Day, it was more just some of the top notch guys visiting this weekend, and then they’ll have some more visiting weekends down the road. Lacrosse got a big win over North Carolina. Basketball had an incredible run, but feel short in the game, and women’s basketball fell. So I guess it was an up and down weekend in Gator sports.

Nick:                         The hardwood is what it is. I guess Florida, if you can go on the road in the SEC and split road games you’re doing okay, but I think it was just the way Florida lost after making a 22-0 run, the way that they lost at South Carolina is probably what leaves a bad taste.

Andrew:                 I think the biggest thing is how in the heck do you go on a 22-2 run? I mean a 22-0 run. That’s just unheard of in college basketball.

Nick:                         I think the last one I can remember was Florida had a 21-0 run against Kansas, but I think that’s it. I mean, that’s impressive. To go on that kind of run, there’s always runs in basketball, but to go on a 22-0 run is pretty special, and then to falter down the stretch the way that they did is just disappointing. It’s almost to the point where it’s not unexpected with this team.

Andrew:                 It is what it is with this team. It’s up and down team that just doesn’t really have that, you know when it’s crunch time, and it’s time to go to your best player is it Dodo? But he doesn’t really create his own shot a lot of times. Is it KeVaughn Allen, who is streaky? Is it Egbunu inside, who is up and down? It’s kind of problems inside. Definitely got to have these games, Vandy and Kentucky. You got to have those two games at home, and then what is it? LSU and Missouri on the road?

Nick:                         Yeah.

Andrew:                 You think they got to go 3-4 down this stretch to kind of be feeling good about themselves coming Selection Sunday, and then, of course, have a decent run in the SEC tournament.

Nick:                         To me, I think it’s tough when you’re talking about this team and what they can. I think CBS has them as a ten seed right now, so you’d have to think that they would have to at least win two, at least have to win two of those games, and then probably win a game or two in the SEC tournament. It’s looking tough. I could see Florida being barely making the tournament, or maybe even being one of the first four out.

Andrew:                 It’s kind of weird. When you talk about the team, would it surprise anyone if they went and won 4-0 over the next four stretch? I would say probably not, because…

Nick:                         I would be shocked if they went 4-0, including two road wins.

Andrew:                 It’s just a team that you just don’t know what you’re going to get from one game to the other. Would it be shocked if they went 4-0, I mean, yeah, you’d be a little shocked, but would you be flabbergasted? No. Would be flabbergasted if they went 0-4 during this stretch? Probably not. It’s just kind of the nature of this team that it’s up and down.

Nick:                         What would surprise you more, 4-0 or 0-4?

Andrew:                 0-4 maybe. I don’t know. I mean, 0-4, that would just be awful. Again, the SEC is not a good conference, and Florida has shown abilities to play really well, and then they show ability to play really, really bad. so I guess neither one of them would shock me a ton. LSU’s without their second best player probably for the rest of the season, and then Ben Simmons is banged up a little bit. Missouri’s an average team, but it is on the road. Vandy is a team that’s at home, and then Kentucky’s at home in a rivalry game. I could see it going either way. It would be crazy if they did go 0-4, because that would definitely lock things up to keep them out of the tournament.

Nick:                         I think I would more surprised by them going 4-0 than them going 0-4.

Andrew:                 I don’t know. Let’s talk a little recruiting here. Get a little on the positive note here.

Nick:                         Basketball season is beating us down.

Andrew:                 I’m just not a basketball guy too much. Baseball, spring training’s underway, so the happiest time of the year for me. Saturday Florida hosts a number of big time talented guys. You had five star Calvin Ashley, the offensive lineman from Orlando, committed to Auburn. You had Alabama commit, the safety Xavier McKinney. You had top defensive end Zach Carter on campus. You had two big uglies in Mallard Creek offensive line duo Eric Douglas and TJ Moore. You had the Tampa athlete, Devon Barrett, in town, and then they were kind of all overshadowed by 2019. Yeah, Nick, I said 2019. Freshman in high school.

Nick:                         I don’t even know. People talk about five year plans. I don’t know even know where I’ll be in 2019. I don’t know if I’ll be alive, what I’ll be doing in 2019, but Jaleel McRae apparently knows what he’s going to be doing in 2019. He’s going to be going to college at Florida.

Andrew:                 Yeah. 6’1”, 185 pound safety that Florida projects him as a safety. Who knows what he grows into when it comes down to time to enroll into school? 6’1”, 190 pounds from New Smyrna Beach down there, from Dallas Baker area.

Nick:                         Dallas Baker, the touchdown maker.

Andrew:                 Dallas Baker, the touchdown maker, yeah. He came in with 35 inch arms, for what? Probably 14 years old. Maybe 15 years old. That’s pretty good size. He’s a guy that people are already saying, he’s going to be a linebacker. Who knows? You’re projecting that. He said he always wanted to play for Florida. Him and his dad grew up going to Gator games, and props to him for getting his dream offer and go ahead and getting it out of the way. He gets to go be the king of the high school as a freshman.

Nick:                         What’s the difficulty when you’re accepting a commitment from somebody three years down the road? I remember it Tyler Bird that committed when Muschamp was here, and everyone was like, he’s only a sophomore. There’s a long way to go. Obviously he ended up going through a couple schools before finally signing this year. What’s the difficulty, I guess, of accepting a commitment from somebody who’s not going to be signing for three years?

Andrew:                 You better know that this kid is elite if you’re going to take him as a freshman, but the thing is if he doesn’t work out you think Florida’s going to stick by him in three years if he turns into a dud? Probably not. This kid I’m sure is going to take visits. He’s still got three more years before he’s signing, so I’m sure he’s going to take visits. I think the biggest thing is that they did recognize he’s a big talent from a generally good place for Florida to go, and props to them for going ahead and getting him. We know recruiting is now three year project. Florida’s hosting several 2019 prospects on campus. So I guess it’s seed things early, I guess is the best way to say it. Projecting where he’ll play is who knows? That’s like projecting where he’s going to be growing up and going to high school. You don’t even know if he’ll go to the same high school his senior year.

Nick:                         That’s true. You really never know. He’s not really down in south Florida where it seems like south Florida the off season is kind of like NFL free agency, where kids are transferring schools left and right at breakneck paces, but it’s true. There’s going to be a lot of change. Does it help at all with this recruiting class? Just as far as momentum, like we have a commitment, or is it kind of not really on the radar of these rising seniors?

Andrew:                 I think it’s there. It gets Florida kind of in the news. I mean, it got Florida in the news. From what I’ve been able to tell, that’s the first 2019 commit in the country, and Florida gets him. I think it gets Florida on the map.

Nick:                         So for all the negative people out there, Florida has the #1 ranked 2019 recruiting class right now.

Andrew:                 Yeah. They do. I’m declaring them national champions for that year in recruiting. So there you go. No. I think it’s somewhat there. It puts Florida in the news, but does it really create a dividend for domino affect now? Probably not. You need a 2017 guy to do that. The good thing for Florida is this. They have another weekend, and then they start spring practice. So it means they’re going to get more and more kids on campus. I think they’re doing well. You look at a guy like Calvin Ashley, probably the #1 offensive lineman in the state of Florida, comes on campus, and has a great trip. That was good for them. Then Zach Carter has a great trip from Tampa there. The guys they’re wanting to get are going in the right direction, and then, as we all say, if your fans want the four and five star guys, you better be patient. They’re not committing any time soon. Be patient when Florida doesn’t get a commit from those guys.

Nick:                         It seems like you kind of lose track of that, but everyone’s different. So there’s kids that want to just get it done with. I don’t like this process. I think I know where I want to go. I want to be done with it. And there’s kids who enjoy it, and really want to kind of drag it out and see what’s out there. So Florida’s got three kids in 2017 right now. Obviously, quarterback Jake Allen. Quarterbacks commit early. Offensive lineman in Kadeem Telfort, and a wide receiver in Daquon Green. That list is going to grow, but I think Florida’s going to have to be pickier this year. You’re not going to be able to have as big of a class as you had last year. Again, we’re just projecting that right now.

Andrew:                 Florida only said 24 last year. I still think the number I’m continuing to be told is 23, 25. So there’s a possibility that you have a close to full class.

Nick:                         Okay. Right now we’re so far. You don’t know. After spring practice kids can transfer, transfer in, transfer out. So that number, what it is in February is not what it’s going to be in July, what it’s going to be in next January as we get ready for the next Signing Day. Right now I think you and I can probably agree anywhere from 22-24. That could shrink if some kids stay in school. It could inflate if kids leave early for the draft, transfer. That number’s fluid.

Andrew:                 It is. I think it’s stupid to really try to project that. Of course, everybody wants to project it, but I think it’s kind of stupid to say this is going to be the number.

Nick:                         It’s part of our job to do it, but you can’t come out on February 22 and say, “Florida can only sign this number of kids next year. That’s it. Not changing. That’s the number.”

Andrew:                 Right. Exactly. A thing that I wanted to say real quick is on Daquon Green, the receiver out of Tampa. He’s still a lot of people have him as a three star guy, but he’s a guy that’s been impressing a ton in seven on seven, even at the opening combine on Sunday, and he’s a guy that I think is going to really go up the rankings, and he’s going to be one of the top guys in this class. Then the other positive thing for Florida is Jake Allen throwing to all these guys during these off season things is going to help a lot.

Nick, you’ve been around Jake, talked to Jake, like I have. He’s a guy that has that personality that just people want to play with. He throws a good ball, and Florida’s really lacked for a long time having that quarterback that’s the leader of the class, the alpha male of the class, to really go out and recruit for Florida, and that’s exactly what Jake Allen’s doing. I expect that to pay dividends for Florida down the road. It already is with a guy like Daquon Green. That helped a ton there. Guys like James Robinson are interested in Florida because of that. It’s helping for sure, and I expect that to continue during these off season camps.

Nick:                         Just having a quarterback in place helps, and then when it’s a kid like Jake Allen, who kind of enjoys that whole process of recruiting, that helps even more. Will Grier was committed to Florida early on, but he was in North Carolina. So I think having a guy committed who is in state, especially down at St. Thomas Aquinas, down in south Florida, an area that Florida needs to recruit well, really helps. Like they say in real estate, it’s location, location, location. Jake Allen’s got great location in order to help Florida and build momentum at a very important position.

Andrew:                 I mean, I like Will Grier a lot. You and I liked him a lot during his recruitment, but he was a guy that he didn’t do a lot of recruiting for Florida. He would tell you he didn’t do a lot of recruiting. He didn’t talk to a ton of guys. It kind of shows a little bit. I mean, when you’re the quarterback, and you’re the leader of that class, you are able to recruit and say, come be the receiver with me for the next few years, and that becomes a deal where it helps people. When you’re able to throw the ball to these guys in off season camps, seven on seven, the openings, when they have Friday Night Lights at Florida, Allen’s going to be able to recruit some of those guys, because they’re going to be able to develop a connection. I said it before, and I don’t want to compare Jake Allen to the person I’m about to say, but when’s the last quarterback that really recruited a lot for Florida? Was it Tebow? Because that’s probably the last guy that I can really say that did.

Nick:                         But did Tebow, Tebow didn’t commit until Signing Day.

Andrew:                 No. He committed in what? December.

Nick:                         Yeah. He was an early enrollee.

Andrew:                 I mean, he had been talking to guys a lot. He had the Brandon Spikes, the Percy Harvins. He had those guys there that followed him. I mean, Brandon Spikes is on record as saying that him and Tebow talked about they were going to play at the same school together, that kind of stuff. That’s kind of what I’m talking about. I mean, I posed this question to everybody, and nobody’s really had an answer to that. Who has been a quarterback that’s really recruited for Florida? Treon Harris, he pays dividends for Florida, because he’s at Florida, but is he recruiting? Did he do any recruiting for Florida? No, because guess what? He was there committing on Signing Day, and he didn’t bring any receivers with him.

You look at last year in Feleipe Franks. I mean, a lot of kids didn’t even know Feleipe Franks, because he’s a quiet guy. Kyle Trask was a guy that was an under the radar guy. He didn’t do a lot of recruiting for them. Then Grier, he didn’t either. I’m wasn’t too familiar with Jeff Driskel. I don’t know if he did a lot. Maybe it is Driskel. If it is, then I apologize to Driskel, but really it’s been a while since Florida’s had that quarterback recruiting for them.

Nick:                         I’m just trying to remember. You’d probably know better than I would, but I’m trying to remember, and I don’t remember Tebow being that big of a recruiter. Since we’ve been here giving out our Recruiter of the Year Award.

Andrew:                 Three defensive backs.

Nick:                         Yeah. Which I guess makes sense when you think of who the talkers on the field are, but I can’t really remember. I don’t think Tebow was, just because he kind of didn’t commit until he was ready to get on campus, and then when you’re on campus it’s not really the same. That was also really before social media, where a lot of these kids are talking. It’s not even just on Twitter. You get a full blown conversation to people on SnapChat, and there’s Instagram, and Facebook. Really when Tebow was on campus it was kind of before all of those things. Facebook was new, but it wasn’t really used by coaches and used the way it is now.

Andrew:                 You and I both know forever Tebow knew he was going to Florida. It was a Cece Jefferson kind of thing. There was a lot of guys, from reading stories, that say, “We talked to Tebow and said we were going to go to the same school as him.” So maybe it wasn’t so much of him saying, “Come to Florida with me, or let’s go to school together.” That’s kind of what I’m talking about. You see guys like last year with Jacob Eason. He was a guy that was kind of the alpha male of their class for a long time. Towards the end the guys he recruited had to recruit him, but it’s that. You look at a guy like Quincy Wilson, whenever he was there recruiting for Florida. Florida needs that guy to be the quarterback. It is what it is. They need that leader to be the quarterback.

Nick:                         Yeah. That’s true. You’ll get that in Jake Allen, regardless of who has or hasn’t been that in the past. You’re definitely going to get that out of Jake Allen this recruiting cycle. So that’s good for Florida. Jake was in Orlando, and I believe he made it to the next stage trying to earn his invitation to the opening and to the Elite 11. So congratulations to Jake on making it one step closer to that goal.

Andrew:                 He didn’t get the invite, unfortunately, to the opening, but he gets to go down to Miami, and I know he was one of the top three guys that kind of was in towards the end of making it, so he’s a guy that I expect to probably go down to Miami and probably either win it there or be a guy that makes it towards the end of the cycle when they start to hand out late invites to that. I expect Jake to get that invite out to the Elite 11, and I would say that it probably, if it doesn’t come in the Miami, it comes later in the process. I feel pretty good at saying that he’ll make it down there to the Elite 11.

Nick, the diamond’s where the talk of the town this weekend. You want to start with softball, or you want to start with baseball?

Nick:                         Let’s start with baseball. We had our opening weekend for baseball. There was a record number on opening night. I think that was 5,778, which is a record. It’s the fourth biggest crowd ever at McKethan Stadium, and it’s also a record for opening night. So fourth biggest crowd ever, biggest ever to see the first game of the season. It was a record crowd in total attendance for the entire week, and Florida took care of a very good Florida Gulf Coast team. This is a Florida Gulf Coast team, when you hear Florida Gulf Coast you think, no way, not very good. Baseball’s different. This is a Florida Gulf Coast team that’ll probably make the post season, be a three or four seed somewhere, and Florida was pretty dominant.

You win all three games. Sunday you kind of explode, but let’s start. On Friday, with Logan Shore probably making his last opening day start for the Gators, just because he’ll be drafted, and he didn’t disappoint. It wasn’t a dominating performance. It was kind of what you’ve come to expect from Shore, and it’s just he does enough. He just gets outs. He doesn’t get rattled. He threw five innings, gave up three hits, one run, walked two, which is a little uncharacteristic for him. He’s a guy with great control, and had six strikeouts. He was on a 70-75 pitch count, which all the pitchers will be for the first three, four weeks. Just a solid outing from him.

Then the big thing for me is that the top of the order this week in Dalton Guthrie, Buddy Reed, or really just Buddy Reed and JJ Schwarz kind of off to slow starts, but the middle of the lineup and the bottom of the lineup, specifically Deacon Liput, these guys are just crushing the ball. It’s good to see from the standpoint of you expected Schwartz, and you expected Reed to be your big hitters in this lineup, even when they don’t get it done you’ve got so many other guys getting the job done. Jeremy Vasquez had a great weekend. Pete Alonso had a great weekend. Mike Rivera hit a homerun. I jokingly told Rivera after he hit a homerun on Friday night, I said, “You’re on pace for 56 homeruns this year.” He laughed, and said, “Yeah, I wish.”

Andrew:                 It was a good weekend. It was a weekend that I kind of thought Florida probably needed, and I say that in that they were tested a little bit this weekend. I think that was good. I said the same thing, we’ll talk about it in a minute, but with softball. These two teams, they’re #1, but they need to be tested. They need to have their backs against the wall a little bit, be shown some adversity, and have to come back and win. I think that’s exactly what they did. Did they come back from behind just one game, or was it two games this weekend?

Nick:                         They came from behind in just one game. They were down on Saturday. Basically they were in close games. You win 4-2 on Friday. That’s a close game. You were down on Saturday at one point, 4-2, before winning 8-4, and on Sunday they jumped out to a 4-0 lead. Then it’s 4-2 at one point before a gigantic six run innings in the seventh, and you end up winning 12-3. That’s a thing. So this Florida team everybody picked them to win the SEC East, picked them to win the SEC. They’re the #1 team in the country, and these guys are kind of feeling themselves, and by that I mean they know they’re good. So it’s not a team, they’re not shying away from their #1 rating. They’re owning it.

Andrew:                 Right.

Nick:                         To get into a situation where you’re losing the second game of the year, and to battle back from it, the thing that I noticed sitting at the stadium watching the game is that the dugout never changed. It didn’t matter if they were up 4-2, when they were down 4-2, the dugout never changed. To me the attitude in the dugout was we’re down, but we’re not worried about it, because we’re going to win this game. It’s just a confidence, bordering on cocky, but a confidence that this team has.

Andrew:                 That’s what I was going to say. It’s a team that needs to see some adversity, because they need to see how they’re going to bounce back from it when they are presented with that time against LSU. You don’t want that first time to be down being SEC play, or this week against Miami. You’re going to face a good Miami team, and Miami’s going to test them. Miami’s a good baseball team, and I think they’re going to test them. A thing that I think is very important is I like to see Sully keep his starting pitchers to a pitch count early in the season, because that is good. One of the biggest things that is in college baseball now is that college baseball coaches do not take care of their pitchers, and I think that’s something that Sully does a good job of.

Nick:                         He definitely takes care of arms. Some people point to Karsten Whitson, but I really point to Scott Moss. Scott Moss closed the game out on Sunday. This is a guy who is 91, 92, 93 miles an hour, left hander. He hasn’t pitched in two years, and I asked Kevin O’Sullivan yesterday, I said, “Coach, knowing what he’s gone through the past two years, how special was it for you to kind of see him go out there and finally live out his dream and pitch at Florida?” O’Sullivan said to me, “Really, he could have pitched last year, but we didn’t want to rush it.”

You get into a situation where we think, maybe he can pitch towards the end of the year, but he might have to rush through some of his rehab, and Scott Moss would have helped Florida last year. They don’t have a ton of left handed arms coming out of the bullpen. To have a guy that’s throwing from the left side, throwing 91, 93, that would have helped Florida last year in the College World Series, and Kevin O’Sullivan puts his players ahead of team goals. You’re going to rush through your rehab just so we can win some more ballgames this year. That’s not going to happen.

I think when you see guys like Karsten Whitson turning down money as the ninth overall pick. Brady Singer who I want to talk about turning down second round money. He was the 56th overall pick, and coming to Florida, and I think part of that is I know I’m going to get taken care of. I’m not going to be run into the ground by a coach who’s just trying to win games.

Andrew:                 Right. It’s a thing that for a while it was a notion that if you were good enough to be drafted as a pitcher early in the rounds you should go, because coaches were going to hurt your arms, and they were going to destroy your arms, and that was something you didn’t want to do. I give him props that he does that. As far as hitting goes, who would you say did a good job in the box this weekend? I know you said JJ Schwarz struggled a little bit, but who was the offensive leaders this weekend?

Nick:                         Offensive leaders in my opinion this weekend are Jeremy Vasquez, Deacon Liput, and I’ll give you four, Vasquez, Larson, Liput, and India. Jonathan India and Deacon Liput are hitting 8, 9. They were the freshmen that started this week. Florida played seven freshmen on Sunday alone. So there’s really a lot of youth to this team, and a lot of guys that need to get innings, but India was very impressive.

Deacon Liput was just, the ball must have looked like a watermelon coming at him. He had four RBIs, or three RBIs on Saturday. He had another four RBIs on Sunday. I think this kid is really just the moment’s not too big for him, coming in and having to start right away, hitting in the eight hole. Did really well. Ryan Larson I think hit close to .500 this weekend, including a four for four game, which is a career high for hits for him, on Saturday.

Jonathan India, another guy at third base, made an error on Saturday. It’s like I said last week, whoever’s playing third needs to get that error out of the way, because you’re not Josh Tobias. Josh Tobias might not even be able to have that kind of year that he had last year again. Then the other one was Mike Rivera. Mike Rivera hits better with runners in scoring position, and I don’t know why, because when a guy’s on second, and there’s supposed to be a little more pressure, there’s a little more added to that at bat. I think Mike Rivera prefers to hit with runners on scoring position than to hit with no outs and nobody on.

Andrew:                 He hit a rocket out of the ballpark on Saturday. That was the weekend. They’re 3-0. What’s the week ahead look like?

Nick:                         It’s a busy week ahead. Florida’s going to play. They will host Eastern Michigan in Gainesville on Tuesday night at 7:00PM, and then they will go on the road, tag along with Eastern Michigan down to Lakeland, Florida. Eastern Michigan being a northern team, there’s snow, and you don’t play baseball in snow. So they’re making a trip down south to start their year. After that Wednesday game in Lakeland, Florida goes down for a three game set in Miami, and there’s really no rest, because you’ve got two midweek games after that, a three game series with Dartmouth, and then two more midweek games. Florida’s got a very busy front half of the schedule, but obviously the weekend series at Miami is really what everyone’s thinking about.

Florida should be able to beat Eastern Michigan pretty handily on Tuesday and Wednesday. Really shouldn’t have to worry about either of those games, and then you get into the weekend series with Miami, who swept their opening series, and that’s going to be a great series. There’s no love lost between those fan bases. Miami has a very passionate baseball community. It’s down there in my neck of the woods, and south Florida loves their Miami baseball.

Andrew:                 They’re struggling a little bit with some injuries and suspensions, but we’ll see where things go.

Nick:                         We’ll see who is back or isn’t back for the series, but I think they’ll be without some guys on Friday. It’ll be interesting to see what Florida does this weekend. Dane Dunning got some innings this week. Brady Singer got some innings this week. Jackson Kowar comes in, a freshman, touches 98 on the gun, sits at 96 all day Sunday. He has a special arm. I mentioned Scott Moss. There’s so many guys that Florida needs to get innings. Kirby Snead needs to get innings. Getting two games midweek it’ll be interesting to see how Sully moves things around. He did say that Dane Dunning will start on Tuesday. It’ll be interesting to see how long Dunning goes, and what the rotation looks like on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Andrew:                 Softball also had a successful week, and they are now nice 11-0 on the season.

Nick:                         I heard there was some rumblings early on in the game Sunday about some people not being happy that the game was close, or the game was tied, and that it wasn’t a blowout. Turned into being a blowout, but being 11-0 is not bad. I don’t know if you can do much better than that. I guess if you’re 12-0, but that’s for another game.

Andrew:                 Let me just throw this out there. 90-4, Nick. 90-4.

Nick:                         They’ve given up four runs?

Andrew:                 Yes.

Nick:                         Why are they even playing games? They should probably just disband the softball program entirely.

Andrew:                 90-4. That is the runs scored and against Florida this year. 90-4. This past week, 6-0 win over Jacksonville. Then a 10-0 win over Jacksonville. Aleshia Ocasio throws a no-no, no hitter against Jacksonville, that was pretty impressive. Then an 8-0 win over UAB. A 6-2 win over Stephen F. Austin. A 9-0 win over Omaha, and a 3-1 win over Elon, followed up by a 10-0 win over Jacksonville State. A successful week in the tournament out there in Orlando, or Kissimmee, at the Wide World of Sports, and the Gators keep rolling.

Aleshia Ocasio picks up three wins and a save this week. Barnhill picks up two wins, and Gourley picks up two wins. This team is rolling. Again, as I said with baseball, Florida was pushed a little bit against Elon, the 3-1 win, and then they were pushed a little bit against Stephen F. Austin, that 6-2 win. It was good. Is it the quality opponent that Florida should be close to? No, but you get pushed a little bit in softball that’s good. This team, I’m sure they can get complacent at times when they’re 11-0 and outscoring teams 90-4, and I think it’s good to be pushed a little bit.

Nick:                         It is, because, especially early on in the year, really at any point in the year, but especially early on in the year, if you can get just knocked off your perch a little bit, especially if it’s not in the form of a loss, when you’re talking about softball, when it’s not in the form of a loss, just get knocked off your perch a little bit. It’s like, we’re not invincible. We can’t just show up, roll the softball out into the circle, and walk away with a win. We can’t be on our phones in the dugout and run rule everybody. I think it is nice to get into a little dog fight and have to battle and have to earn some stuff.

Andrew:                 Unfortunately, three of the runs given up are against Barnhill, the freshman. She’s a prototypical freshman, in my opinion. She’s had some dominating games where she’s come in and struck out the side, and just ran through the opponent, and then she’s had some time with some struggles of control. In the Stephen F. Austin game the two runs given up were caused by control problems, some passed balls, some walks, that kind of stuff. I think it’s a thing of her over throwing a little bit. Nick, you can attest to that. Over throwing trying to pinpoint your placement on your balls can lead to wild pitches, passed balls, and to some walks for a freshman.

Nick:                         Yeah. Then it kind of builds. We saw it on Saturday with AJ Puk, and on Sunday with Alex Faedo, and these are older guys. Puk throws a ball away on a chopper hit to him, and lets it affect him. That kind of spiraled out of control, and he ends up giving four runs in an inning. Alex Faedo hits the first batter of an inning, lets that get into his head. So I think even with someone like Barnhill who’s had so much success even when you’re not having that level of success it drops off just a little bit it can kind of get into your head, and maybe affects your confidence in the moment. Not long term, but affects your confidence in the moment, which can lead to getting a little wild. Then you get a little wild, and you try to over throw, and what does that do? That breaks down your mechanics even a little bit more, because now you’re trying to do too much, and it can quickly spiral out of control there.

Andrew:                 It is. Maybe the person stealing the show early on is freshman Amanda Lorenz. Good grief, she is knocking the cover off the ball. Before Sunday’s game she had an on base percentage of close to .740. Now she just has .692. Kind of depressing, .692 on base percentage for your three hole hitter is not very good after you were hitting .750.

Nick:                         Maybe she needs to take some extra cuts or something. That is pretty good, especially for a freshman. Pretty good for anyone.

Andrew:                 Yeah. She’s got a .571 batting average now. Cool 12 RBIs, and an impressive 18 runs scored out of the three hole. That says a lot about the team around her that’s doing really well, but it also says a lot about her getting on base. 18 runs scored in 11 games is impressive. That’s close to two runs a game for her. That’s a large part due to Taylore Fuller, who’s hitting in the four hole. She hit her first homerun over the weekend, has 12 RBIs, and is hitting just a cool .400 in that four hole.

Nick:                         Looking at softball numbers, to me, being a baseball guy, looking at softball numbers to me always makes me laugh. To me, I don’t understand how they’re so high. Like when you think of Kelsey Stewart’s a triples hitter, and I look at the field. I’m like, how do you hit a triple on that field? With a smaller field it always astonishes me, especially at a school like Florida where you’ve got this kind of talent, when you get she’s slugging .649, stuff like that. I’m just like, what? That doesn’t even make sense.

Andrew:                 Kelsey Stewart, she was in a little bit of a slump. She ended the tournament with three straight hits, including a monster homerun, and recorded her 300th career hit at Florida in what? Three years and 11 games. Doing well. Her batting average is .226 on the year, but on base percentage of .415. You and I talked about this last week. Kelsey Stewart’s not going to stay down for long. It’s beginning of the season. Swing may be a little long. Timing may be a little off, but she’s going to come around and do well for her.

Then to the mound real quick, to the circle, Delanie Gourley is 4-0. Pitched in relief, and she still has a nice earned run average of 0.00.

Nick:                         Can you do better than that?

Andrew:                 No. I don’t think so. That’s pretty good for someone who was considered to be Florida’s third best pitcher heading into this season, who a lot of people, including myself, thought she would be mainly a reliever in SEC play.

Nick:                         0.00 does not get much better than that. The softball schedule coming up, what does that look like? I know that you will be torn coming up soon, but not this week in California. That’ll be the following week in the next tournament. When you look at Florida’s schedule, not many schedules look like this. When you pull it up, UCLA, NC State, Washington, Nebraska, these are some perennial powerhouses, and it’s probably my favorite thing about softball is getting the tournaments like this that are just loaded.

Andrew:                 The thing for Tim Walton is he kind of reminds me a little bit of Billy Donovan and really Sully. He didn’t back down from going against the best of the best every year. You look at this week’s tournament. They’re going out to California where they’re going to face UCLA, who’s just #8 in the country, and they’ve already faced Michigan, who’s ranked high. They’re going out to face Washington, who’s just #11 in the country. They’re going to face NC State, who at the beginning of the season was a top 25 team, before then. You’re going to face Nebraska, who’s a decent team in the Big 12, and you’ve got a Utah team who has been doing really well in the last few seasons.

So Florida’s going to have a decent test this weekend out in California, where they’re going to play five games over a four day period. The game is an 11:00 game at night against North Carolina State. They’re not taking it easy on old Andrew over here.

Nick:                         You’re going to have to maybe start drinking some coffee. I can give you recommendations.

Andrew:                 Starbucks is the spot. It’s good. There are a couple more tournaments here before they get into play, and couple more times to get freshmen involved. So far six of the seven freshmen have played, and Walton’s has given a couple girls a day off, and also played some girls in different positions to maybe get them ready for next season. As you can attest, it’s always good to get everybody moving around in case there is an injury bug that does hit later in the season.

Nick:                         Yeah. Especially when you’ve got younger girls that you want to get some time, even older players that aren’t playing due to those younger ones, to get them some playing time early just so they don’t feel like they’re being forgotten is important. I think both Kevin O’Sullivan and Tim Walton are kind of having to manage that, because they recruit so well. These freshmen don’t want to sit on the sidelines. It’s a balancing act of keeping a lot of people happy and winning games.

Andrew:                 Exactly. It’s a busy week again. Softball out in California. Gators in Gainesville, Lakeland, and Coral Gables, and basketball home against Vandy tomorrow, on Tuesday when you guys are listening to this. Is that right?

Nick:                         Yeah. Tuesday night. Both games will be in Gainesville. Both games will start at 7:00. It’ll be interesting to see what the crowd is like at both games, with Florida playing Vanderbilt, second to last home game for the basketball season, and then getting Eastern Michigan in. Should be good weather out at the Mac, where I will be.

Andrew:                 Then Saturday is at LSU, correct?

Nick:                         At LSU Saturday, yes. Then I will be down in Coral Gables on Saturday. That will be, our pitch times are 7:00PM Friday, 7:00PM Saturday, and then 1:00PM on Sunday for the end, the series end, and I will be getting a Mark Light shake, at least one every day.

Andrew:                 There you go. We’ll preview that series. We’ll preview softball series later in the week, but Nicholas, tell everybody where they can find us, because, quite frankly, the content at Gator Country is the best.

Nick:                         It is @NickdelaTorreGC for the best gifs on Twitter. @AndrewSpiveyGC, he’s trying to catch up. He is learning. He is my student in the gif game.

Andrew:                 My gif game has been decent.

Nick:                         You are my student in the gif game, because I am the gif goat.

Andrew:                 Okay.

Nick:                         Also follow @GatorCountry on Twitter, TheGatorCountry on Instagram. Follow us on Facebook. We have all of our content on the website, all of our tweets also are there. It is lit on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and then of course www.GatorCountry.com. Now is a great time to join. We’ve had a bunch of new people since before Signing Day, since after Signing Day, and we appreciate you all. Tell your friends if you’re enjoying it. If you’re not enjoying it, keep that to yourself. Don’t tell your friends.

Andrew:                 Hit me up if you’re interested in joining. Maybe can pop you up a new little deal, get you on site, because it’s good. Spring practice is right around the corner. March 8 is Jim McElwain’s press conference. That’s what? Two weeks? Yeah. Two weeks. Pro Day’s there as well. Spring practice is there as well, and recruiting will be there. Take a look at Gator Country, because, quite frankly, we’re the best. We may be a little cocky about that, maybe a little biased, but Mark and Butch, they’ll even attest that Gator Country’s the best, because they don’t like hearing from Andrew. Chomp, chomp. Go Braves.

Nick:                         You stay classy, Gator Country.

Andrew Spivey
Andrew always knew he wanted to be involved with sports in some capacity. He began by coaching high school football for six years before deciding to pursue a career in journalism. While coaching, he was a part of two state semifinal teams in the state of Alabama. Given his past coaching experience, he figured covering recruiting would be a perfect fit. He began his career as an intern for Rivals.com, covering University of Florida football recruiting. After interning with Rivals for six months, he joined the Gator Country family as a recruiting analyst. Andrew enjoys spending his free time on the golf course and watching his beloved Atlanta Braves. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewSpiveyGC.