Following their series loss to Liberty to begin the season, the Gators needed to play much better at Stetson on Tuesday night and get their swagger back. A 1-3 start to the year would be far from ideal for a program with championship aspirations.
That type of feel-good win is exactly what No. 15 Florida got, as they defeated Stetson 8-1 at Melching Field.
“We probably spent 30 minutes in the meeting room [Tuesday] showing them old videos and old footage of what teams in the past have looked like with the excitement and the energy,” UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “Going back to 2010 with [Mike] Zunino and that whole group, we’ve had all these guys that have had a lot of success at the big-league level, but, when they played here, they had a lot of energy. The dugout had some bounce to it, guys came off the mound with a little pep in their step. When guys got big hits, you could see the dugout got excited.
“This weekend, for whatever reason, it was not that feel. That’s what our program’s about. We spent a lot of time on that today, and maybe them seeing it and what it’s supposed to look like will help these guys relax and go out there and play the game like they did when they were kids. I thought today was a step in the right direction.”
It’s hard to find many flaws with the way that the Gators (2-2) played. Offensively, they racked up 14 hits and scored in five of the nine innings.
Third-year freshman designated hitter Tucker Talbott, making his first career appearance, went 4-for-5 with two RBI.
“Sometimes, we make decisions like that, and players make you look smart,” O’Sullivan said. “He’s been around the program. He struck out one time the entire fall against our pitchers, so our players have confidence in him. Obviously, he had a great night.”
Sterlin Thompson went 3-for-5 with three RBI, including his third home run of the season. He finished the game a triple away from the cycle.
Colby Halter, Josh Rivera and Deric Fabian all turned in two-hit games, and Fabian drove in a pair of runs out of the nine hole.
Defensively, the Gators played errorfree for the fourth game in a row to start the season.
Their five pitchers combined to give up just three hits and strike out 10 Hatters.
Timmy Manning bounced back from his rough start on Saturday by tossing a scoreless first inning.
Karl Hartman pitched well for 1 1/3 innings until some borderline calls that didn’t go his way seemed to faze him.
Third-year freshman Nick Ficarrotta made a strong case for receiving more innings during the weekend by striking out six Hatters and giving up just one hit in 4 2/3 scoreless innings.
Blake Purnell and Brandon Neely each put up zeroes in their innings.
“The tempo was a lot different,” O’Sullivan said. “The catcher gave them the sign, and we were in control of the ballgame, kind of what Liberty did to us this weekend, and it kind of gets the hitters back on their heels a little bit. Like I said, we showed video today. I can go on and on, but Hudson Randall coming off the mound pumping his fist and Alex Faedo in the World Series when he pitched against TCU and Brady Singer and Logan Shore. The list goes on and on, but this is how we have to be.
“And I think when you’re able to do that, No. 1, you have to have confidence in your abilities and feeling good about yourself at that particular moment, but we’ve got to show more emotion and guys coming off the mound and jumping over the 45-foot line coming down the first-base line when we’re in the first-base dugout. Those are the things we want to see, and, hopefully, them seeing it, spending a lot of time [Tuesday] showing them that stuff, hopefully, this is a step in the right direction and they kind of get an idea of what it’s supposed to look like.”
UF grabbed control of the game from the outset. Halter lined a leadoff single to right field, and Jud Fabian walked to put two runners on with nobody out in the first. Thompson lined a ball up the middle that center fielder Cameron Hill appeared to lose in the lights. The ball fell in for a hit, and Halter scored. Two batters later, Rivera grounded into a double play with the bases loaded to make it 2-0.
Thompson launched his home run to right field on the first pitch he saw from starter Anthony DeFabbia in the third to make it 3-0.
“He can hit,” O’Sullivan said. “Even him, I think the game maybe sped up on him a little bit on Saturday and Sunday, too. It’s opening weekend. The hard thing to simulate in these intrasquad games is that you go from playing intrasquad games to Feb. 18, and the lights are on. There is no spring training. There is no month to work through the kinks.
“This is really our spring training. We are working through things to try to figure out our team. The idea is to win every time you take the field, but it takes some time to get all the pieces together, see how the players perform.”
Later in the inning, with a runner on second and two outs, Talbott lined a double to left field off of reliever Dominic Stagliano to make it a four-run advantage.
The Hatters (2-2) scored their lone run in the bottom of the inning against Hartman. He jumped ahead of Camden Traficante 0-2 but ended up walking him after throwing two or three pitches that looked like they probably should’ve been called strike three.
Cameron Hill swapped places with Traficante by reaching on a fielder’s choice. He advanced into scoring position after Hartman slipped off of the mound and was called for a balk. Hartman then walked Kyle Ball on another pitch that was close to being strike three, and Hill stole third in the process. A wild pitch scored Hill and led to a four-pitch walk to Nick DiPonzio.
With runners on first and second and one out in a 4-1 game and Hartman clearly rattled, O’Sullivan turned to his bullpen again and brought in Ficarrotta, a righty who throws with a side-armed delivery.
At the time, O’Sullivan was probably just hoping that Ficarrotta could slam the door on the Hatters’ rally and maybe get through an additional inning.
Instead, Ficarrotta took the ball and didn’t give it up until the eighth inning to get credit for the win. He retired the first seven batters he faced. After a walk and a single, he then put together another streak of seven consecutive outs to finish his night.
Meanwhile, UF’s offense gradually padded the lead. Back-to-back doubles by Jud Fabian and Thompson with two outs scored a run in the fourth. Singles by Talbott and Deric Fabian in the fifth plated two more runs to make it 7-1.
Deric Fabian finished the scoring by lining a pitch off of pitcher Austin Amaral with a runner on third in the seventh inning.
The Gators will look to build their momentum even further when they host North Florida on Wednesday night.
“We need to build off of this and not be concerned about the results because we’re certainly talented, and a couple of these young pitchers need to contribute this year,” O’Sullivan said. “Offensively, like I said, I think we had 14 hits tonight. We played clean defense. It’s one game, but it certainly was one that we needed to play a little bit differently than we did this weekend, and I thought we did.”