The Florida Gators were one game short of claiming the program’s second National Championship in 2023. One year later, Florida is back at the College World Series, one of just three schools to make back-to-back appearances in the last two years.
Leading Florida is two-way superstar Jac Caglianone, who’s batting .411 with 33 home runs while pitching to a 5-2 record and a 4.71 ERA across 72.2 innings in 2024.
“This is what you work for all year,” Caglianone said on Thursday. “Coming up one game short last year put a chip on our back, so we wanted to return. Having another shot at it is something we don’t take for granted. We’re thankful to be here and excited to play here.”
While Caglianone continued his excellence on the field for the entire season, the team success wasn’t following. In the final month of the season, Florida had to worry about staying above .500 in order to even qualify for postseason play. At one point the Gators had lost six SEC series in a row before things finally started to click on the road at Georgia, where Florida would take two of three games and essentially clinch their spot in the NCAA Tournament.
Since then, the Gators have won six of their last seven games including five in a row to punch their ticket to Omaha.
“The biggest thing for me in kind of this whole group has been playing for each other to get to this point,” Caglianone said. “We kind of bought into wanting the team’s success over individual success, and that’s just kind of what’s propelled us and motivate the us to get to where we are now.”
“Once we got the opportunity to play in the postseason, I mean, record is reset. None of it matters,” Caglianone added. “We knew that we have loads of talent from top to bottom on this roster. Like I said earlier, just playing for each other, knowing what this program is about and what this program has always been about. Our final goal is to be here. Having everybody buy into that and realizing we had that opportunity was really a good push in the right direction for us, and we just kind of built on it.”
Having been in the tournament a year ago, Florida returns several major contributors from last year’s squad including Cade Kurland, Luke Heyman, Tyler Shelnut, Brandon Neely, Cade Fisher, Dale Thomas, Michael Robertson, Fisher Jameson and Jac Caglianone. That level of experience doesn’t go unnoticed around the clubhouse and should help the Gators through the biggest stage in college baseball.
“I think that’s huge,” Caglianone said on Florida having College World Series experience. “At the beginning of the year, we just wanted to get back here. So having guys who have played here and kind of know what it’s like with the atmosphere and stuff, I think it’s just going to play in our favor.”
Jac Caglianone and the Florida Gators take on Texas A&M on Saturday at 7:00 PM EST.