The No. 2 Florida Gators (11-2) players walked off the field with their heads down, not a word was said as they left Jay Bergman Field in Orlando on Tuesday night. In their estimation, the Gators had wasted opportunities and given the game to the No. 9 UCF Knights (11-2) but there was a silver lining. The Gators had only 24 hours to wait before getting a shot at redemption.
“Its disappointing when you make some errors and stuff but we weren’t down,” senior Josh Tobias said. “Today was a lot better, everybody was up in the dugout, cheering.”
They didn’t waste their second opportunity against UCF, taking the second game of the series by a score of 10-2.
“We’re playing a good team. They’re ranked in the top-15, we’re playing at their place, and a good environment and we lost by a run,” head coach Kevin O’Sullivan said of the Tuesday loss. “We came back and answered well. That was the message to our team this afternoon; good teams answer. I thought they played great and I thought they played inspired.
Sophomore Brett Morales gave Florida exactly what they needed. The right-handed flamethrower sat down the first nine batters he faced, including three strikeouts. Meanwhile, Florida’s bats made up for the nap they took on Tuesday night in the very first inning.
Buddy Reed launched a one-out double to get things going and Harrison Bader drew a walk and Buddy Reed advanced to third base on the ball four wild pitch. Bader stole second and Jordan Savinon’s throw to second found its way to center field, allowing Reed to score and Bader to move over to third. Bader would come around to score on a wild pitch — the first of three runs the Gators would score on wild pitches Wednesday night.
“It’s always good to get an early lead, especially after losing the game yesterday,” Tobias said. “It kind of gave us momentum throughout the whole game, because we basically scored every inning. That just got us rolling.”
The Gators scored at least one run in each of the first four innings — including Bader’s team-leading sixth home run of the season — to take a commanding 7-1 lead into the sixth inning. The Orange and Blue pounded out three more runs in the sixth as UCF used a carousel of six pitchers, each as ineffective as the one before.
“It’s great. We needed to bounce back from last night’s game,” freshman Christian Hicks said. “We had great hitting, we played good defense again and the pitchers did a better job coming in and throwing strikes out of the bullpen.”
The Gators split the season series with UCF 1-1 and will host Maine this weekend for a three-game series.
“It’s always good to get an early lead, especially after losing the game yesterday,” Tobias said. “It kind of gave us momentum throughout the whole game, because we basically scored every inning. That just got us rolling.”