The UF baseball team lost to Oklahoma on Monday night in the Gainesville Regional championship.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Gators owned a late lead, but on an unexpected late night at Condron Ballpark, they couldn’t keep it.
Florida lost 5-4 to Oklahoma on Monday night in the Gainesville Regional championship game as its season came to an end.
Following a 5-hour, 33-minute weather delay play resumed with Florida right-hander Ryan Slater taking over on the mound. Slater struck out Kendall Pettis looking to end the inning, and the Gators added to their lead on a sacrifice fly by Ty Evans in the bottom of the seventh, making it 3-1.
However, the Sooners responded in the top of the eighth with four runs off Slater to take the lead. Wyatt Langford’s 26th home run of the season — tying the single-season school record — accounted for the Gators’ final run.
In a bid to advance to the Blacksburg Super Regional to face Virginia Tech, Florida turned to freshman Brandon Neely for the second time in three days to start against the Sooners. Neely lasted only 2 1/3 innings in Friday’s loss to Oklahoma, but on a sun-baked afternoon at Condron Ballpark, Neely delivered a clutch outing for the Gators.
He limited the Sooners to four hits and one run over 6 2/3 innings before a weather delay ended his day with two outs in the top of the seventh inning. Neely threw 88 pitches after throwing only 50 in Friday night’s outing.
Freshman Jac Caglianone homered to right in the second inning off Sooners starter Trevin Michael for the game’s first run. The Gators led 1-0 until the fifth when Oklahoma outfielder Kendall Pettis smashed a hanging breaking ball from Neely a solo home run to left, tying the game 1-1.
Florida regained the lead in the bottom of the fifth thanks to a pair of defensive miscues by the Sooners. First, leadoff hitter Colby Halter reached on second baseman Jackson Nicklaus’ error. After Wyatt Langford and Sterlin Thompson flew out, BT Riopelle singled to right-center as Halter raced to third. When Sooners right fielder John Spikerman mishandled the ball for an errors, Halter raced home with the go-ahead run.
2022 Gainesville Regional All-Tournament Team
C: Jimmy Crooks, Oklahoma
1B: Danny Wuestenfeld, Central Michigan
2B: Sterlin Thompson, Florida
3B: Colby Halter, Florida
SS: Peyton Graham, Oklahoma
OF: Kendall Pettis, Oklahoma
OF: John Spikerman, Oklahoma
OF: Tanner Tredaway, Oklahoma
DH: Jac Caglianone, Florida
SP: Brandon Sproat, Florida
SP: David Sandlin, Oklahoma
RP: Carsten Finnvold, Florida
TOURNAMENT MVP: Kendall Pettis, Oklahoma
NOTABLES
* Florida finished the season at 42-24, winning 40-plus games for the 27th time in program history.
* Neely made Monday’s start on two days’ rest, pitching against Oklahoma for the second time in three days after throwing 50 pitches against the Sooners on Saturday.
* The freshman right-hander pitches six innings of one-run ball before having his outing cut short due to weather.
* Play was delayed due to weather at 3:12 p.m. and did not resume until 8:45, marking a delay of five hours and 33 minutes.
* Caglianone hit his seventh home run of the season top open a 1-0 lead for Florida in the second inning.
* Langford connected for his 26th home run of the season in the ninth inning, tying him with Matt LaPorta (2005) for the most runs in a single season in program history
* Florida’s 122 home runs this season ranked second all-time in program history.
* Record: 132 (1998)
* Florida is now 1-2 all-time against Oklahoma
* Florida is 119-82 in NCAA Tournament games.
* The Gators played in their 14th-consecutive NCAA Regional under O’Sullivan.
* 2022 represents Florida’s 37th NCAA appearance and 18th time hosting.
* Florida finished the season winning 17 of its last 23 games and 19 of its last 26.
FROM HEAD COACH KEVIN O’SULLIVAN
On his message to the team after the game…
“First, want to congratulate Oklahoma – Skip and his staff do a really good job. He is a friend of mine – a real class act, you could see that yesterday after he complimented Carsten on his outing. They are deserving of moving forward, they have a really good club. Message to our team – pretty simple. I am proud of them. Where we were six weeks ago at 6-12, they were selfless, they paid attention and they were a really tight-knit group. If you followed us closely, you see that they are really close. I told them this morning and again tonight that this is one of the most enjoyable years that I have had coaching. You’re asking guys to move from right field to second, second to third, your No. 1 goes down and Sproat takes over as your number 1. We were 6-12 and we go to Mississippi State – a really tough place to play – and we sweep them. We win 2-of-3 against Missouri, take 2-of-3 against South Carolina, have a great run in Hoover after getting 10-runned by Texas A&M, get a chance to host again at home which is not easy to do. There are 300 Division I teams and 16 get to host. We had a really difficult draw, you saw the play this weekend, it was outstanding. Oklahoma is arguably a team that could have hosted. Liberty – the three-seed – took 2-of-3 from us to start the season and you saw how tough Central Michigan was. They came in here with 42 wins. It was a difficult field, but at the end, what can you say, we were one run short.”
On the takeaways from the Regional…
“…The outing yesterday by Carsten was one of the best outings in program history – a freshman. Today, you have Neely coming back on short rest and goes 6 2/3 and only giving up one run, it is a really tough lineup with a lot of left-handers. Wish we had a couple more left-handers that could have helped us, that would have been helpful. No one feels worse than Ryan does right now, but it is part of the game. It is part of life. Losing is not a good feeling, but we threw three freshmen today and held one of the better offenses in the country. They can beat you a lot of different ways – on the base paths, with the bunt game and they have a great shortstop along with some older guys in their lineup. They have very talented freshmen and their left-handed lineup is a very difficult thing to navigate through. They threw their closer today who had a great arm and then they bring back their No. 1 on two days rest who is a first rounder. We fell one run short. In a couple of days, we step back from this and I am proud of the team, simple as that. Everyone wants to win at the end of the year, we have done that. We have also lost in Omaha and that hurts, when you lose in a Super Regional or a Regional, it hurts, but your whole program is built around culture. I think this is a big step in building that culture back and getting to where we want to be, playing for a National Championship.”
On only having Slater ready in the bullpen…
“No, we had [Nick] Ficarrotta and Fisher [Jameson] ready to go, but Ryan has been our guy. It was a double and a home run and it was a tie ballgame. What hurt was the walk after the two-run homer. Like I said, no one feels worse than he does. No one wants to fail, he competed and sometimes the other team just beats you. But Ryan has been our guy, when you get to this part of the season, I am not going to second guess any decision we make. He saved a lot of tough games down the stretch for us. I am proud of the progress he made.”
On this year’s team…
“I will stand firm on what I believe. This team was a great group to coach, it really was. Some years it is not the same, but this group was really fun to coach… I am disappointed right now, but I am really proud of this team.”
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