The Florida Gators were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament following an 11-4 loss to East Carolina in Sunday’s elimination game. Florida finishes 39-22 (15-15 SEC) on the 2025 season.
“First of all, congratulations to ECU, obviously they beat us handily two times this weekend,” head coach Kevin O’Sullivan said postgame. “It’s always tough when your season comes to an end, but there’s a lot of guys I want to thank for their efforts this year. Obviously East Carolina deserves to move on and we’ll get back to Gainesville, have our exit meetings, and prepare for next year.”
Florida had a unique journey to make the Conway Regional. The Gators started 1-11 in SEC play, becoming the first team in league history to make the NCAA Tournament after starting 2-10 or worse since the conference expanded in 1992. The Gators finished the regular season with six consecutive series wins to finish 15-15 in SEC play.
“It was a battle for sure,” senior outfielder Ty Evans said on the season. “It’s something that we’re proud of, we battled back with our backs against the wall and we were able to make a regional.”
The Gators battled a number of key injuries including four of the team’s top six hitters from their opening day lineup.
“It really took everyone, pitch by pitch just to grind it out,” senior infielder Bobby Boser said on the season. “We did a good job being resilient, middle of the year we made a run. We were hoping to continue it but it came to an end.”
Florida ran into a scrappy East Carolina team that’s now won six of their last seven games while scoring at least six runs in every game during that span. The Gators pitching staff didn’t have it this weekend as two of Florida’s three weekend starters failed to record seven outs in their starts. Defense continued to be an issue as Florida made three errors on Sunday afternoon which resulted in four unearned runs. East Carolina took control of the game behind a five run third inning as the Pirates sent eight batters to the plate before Florida could record an out.
The Gators will return back home to Gainesville where exit meetings will take place next week.
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