Florida plated five runs in the fourth but were unable to mount a late rally.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – No. 8 Florida was outslugged by Florida State by a final score of 12-8 at Condron Family Ballpark on Tuesday night.
The Gators (10-6) received a scoreless top half of the first from starter Alex Philpott<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/alex-philpott/16632>, but the Seminoles (15-0) plated three runs in the second to jump out to an early 3-0 lead. With the bases loaded, Jaxson West drove home Marco Dinges with a sacrifice center while DeAmez Ross reached on a fielding error at second base, allowing two additional runs to score.
Right-hander Fisher Jameson<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/fisher-jameson/16371> took over with two outs in the second and limited the damage. Florida State got back on the board in the third, using a two-out, RBI single to right field from Daniel Cantu to score Drew Faurot for a 4-0 advantage.
Florida State scored for the third-straight inning in the fourth. On the first pitch of his at bat, James Tibbs III swatted a three-run home run to right field to move the tally to 7-0.
Florida roared to life in the fourth, erupting for five runs. On a 2-1 offering with the bases loaded, Dale Thomas<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/dale-thomas/16378> drove a sacrifice fly to left-center to bring in Colby Shelton<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/colby-shelton/16639>. Later in the inning with the bags still juiced, Cade Kurland<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/cade-kurland/16372> launched a grand slam home run to left field to bring the Gators within two, 7-5.
In the top of the fifth, Florida state quickly loaded the bases but southpaw Robert Satin<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/robert-satin/16637> induced a 1-2-3 double play for the first two outs of the jam. Florida then turned to righty Ryan Slater<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/ryan-slater/16377>, who promptly finished off the frame to hold the score into bottom-five.
On the heels of a scoreless fifth, the Seminoles strung together three more runs in the sixth. Dinges produced the first with a sacrifice fly to center, followed by a two-run double to right-center off the bat of Alex Lodise to make it 10-5 in favor of FSU.
The Seminoles added two runs in the eighth, beginning with an RBI single off the pitcher by Cantu. Lodise then bunted home Dinges to push the FSU advantage to 12-5.
The Gators showed late life in the contest. With the bases loaded in the eighth, Ty Evans<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/ty-evans/16368> raced home on a wild pitch. The next inning with two outs and one man on, Evans lined one to center field that was unable to be caught, allowing Evans to motor around the bags for a two-run inside-the-park home run. That brough the score to its final mark of 12-8.
Seminoles reliever Carson Dorsey (2-0) picked up the win after throwing 2 2/3 frames of one-run ball. He allowed two hits and struck out four.
Philpott (2-1) received the loss. He allowed three runs (one earned) across 1 2/3 innings and was charged with one hit allowed, four walks and one strikeout.
FSU starting pitcher Andrew Armstrong was handed a no decision, tossing three-plus innings with one unearned run on three hits and one walk. He fanned three.
NOTABLES
* Tuesday night’s official attendance was 8,142, marking the fifth-largest crowd in program history and the biggest ever against Florida State.
* In the ninth inning, Evans hit Florida’s first inside-the-park home run since Brian Ogle accomplished the feat vs. Purdue on March 12, 1997.
* Kurland hit his third-career grand slam for Florida’s first of the season in the fourth inning.
* Blake Purnell<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/blake-purnell/16374> pitched a scoreless seventh inning.
* Heyman and Shelton moved their on-base streaks to 16-straight contests.
* Florida fell to 127-132-1 all-time against Florida State, including 66-50 at home
* The Gators are now 35-20 vs. FSU under head coach Kevin O’Sullivan<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/coaches/kevin-o-sullivan/1752> (18-4 at home), having won 22 of the last 27 meetings.
* Florida had its four-game winning streak in the series snapped.
* Florida dropped to 43-11 at home since the start of 2023.
* Dating back to last season, Florida is 32-9 in regular season non-conference games and has won 23 of its last 29 such contests.
FROM HEAD COACH KEVIN O’SULLIVAN
On his thoughts on the game…
“We got beat in every phase. We got beat on the mound. Their hitters did a nice job, they ran the bases aggressively. They played clean defense. We got beat, really that simple.”
On the pitching…
“Let’s just call it what it is. I mean it was a clean first, then Neely you know, had a clean ninth. Other than that there is a lot of mess in between. It’s no secret, we had three innings again with three runs and then another one in the eighth with two runs and we just can’t stop the bleeding when it seems to happen, and it wasn’t even the top four hitters in the lineup that hurt us. I know [James Tibbs III] had the three-run homer, but you know it was the bottom three. They got on base I think ten times. Once again we gave them ten free passes or so. I mean we kind of scripted it before the game. We sat right in here and said okay, this is what we expect Alex (Philpott) to do and three innings max, and we get an inning and two-thirds and then we tried to follow a freshman with an older guy to kind of stop the bleeding. We brought the two lefties in, they went left, right, left at the bottom and turned the lineup back over to another left-hander. So we tried to set up everything perfectly for them. We tried to use, you know tried to be careful about who we brought in, in the middle of an inning. So it was all scripted, but obviously it didn’t go the way we wanted it to.”
On his message to the team…
“Not much right now. I’m going to sleep on it and we will practice tomorrow and we will go through it. Tonight is not the night to go through it. There are so many things that I’ve got written down that continue to happen, and you know the bottom line is we put ourselves in really poor situations and a lot of it is self-inflicted. We’re going to have to fix it, or you know somehow figure it out. But at some point, the players themselves are going to have take some sort of accountability with what’s going on, but it’s disappointing, honestly.”
UP NEXT
No. 4 Texas A&M comes to Gainesville for a three-game series against the Gators for SEC Opening Weekend (Friday, March 15 – Sunday, March 17). All three matchups will stream on SEC Network+.
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