Tyler Shelnut produced the game-winning blow with a solo home run in the seventh.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – No. 6 Florida outlasted Siena to take game one by a score of 3-2 at Condron Family Ballpark on Friday night.
Following a one hour and 32-minute weather delay, the Gators (13-3) quickly busted out to a 1-0 lead on the Saints (2-11) in the first inning. With runners at the corners, Josh Rivera<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/josh-rivera/15504> reached on a fielder’s choice to bring home Wyatt Langford<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/wyatt-langford/15497>.
On the heels of a second scoreless frame from starter Brandon Sproat<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/brandon-sproat/15508>, Florida tacked on another run in the second. Tyler Shelnut<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/tyler-shelnut/15515>, Luke Heyman<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/luke-heyman/15522> and Michael Robertson<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/michael-robertson/15505> collected one-out singles to load the bases, allowing Cade Kurland<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/cade-kurland/15514> to make it 2-0 with an eight-pitch, bases-loaded walk.
With a 2-0 advantage in hand, Sproat continued to churn out zeros through the fourth. He racked up seven strikeouts prior to ceding duties to southpaw Cade Fisher<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/cade-fisher/15513> after four.
Siena evened the tally at 2-2 in the fifth. With two on and one out, Danny Barbero produced a two-run double into the right-center field gap.
After trading zeros, Florida retook the lead in the bottom of the sixth. Shelnut unloaded on 1-1 offering that landed beyond the left-center field wall for his fourth home run of the year, moving the score to 3-2 in favor of the Gators.
The relief tandem of Nick Ficarrotta<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/nick-ficarrotta/15493> and Brandon Neely<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/brandon-neely/15499> held the score throughout the final three frames. Ficarrotta fired two shutout innings on two hits and two strikeouts, while Neely earned his third save of the season by tossing a scoreless ninth.
Fisher (2-0) earned the win, allowing two runs (one earned) across two innings. The southpaw surrendered two hits and one walk while striking out five batters.
Siena reliever Billy Rozakis fell to 1-3 after giving up one earned run over 1 1/3 frames on four hits and one walk. He struck out one.
Sproat received his first no-decision of the campaign, throwing four innings of shutout ball with three hits and three walks allowed. He struck out seven.
Kurland (2-for-3), Caglianone (2-for-4), Shelnut (2-for-4) and Heyman (2-for-2) registered multi-hit nights.
NOTABLES
* Neely improved to 3-for-3 in save chances.
* Rivera extended his team-leading reached base streaks to 16 games, while Langford’s 15-game streak was snapped.
* Three other Gators also have double-digit reached base streaks: Kurland (14), Caglianone (14) and Robertson (13).
* Florida has struck out 186 batters in 137 innings – translating to 12.2 per nine innings.
* Through 15 games, Florida has a run differential of plus-94.
* The Gators have scored in 75 of 130 batted innings this season (57.7%).
* For the 14th time in 16 games this year, the Gators recorded double-digit hits.
* The Gators have a nation-leading 197 hits through 16 games (12.3 hits/game).
* The Gators improve to 16-0 against Siena including 8-0 under Head Coach Kevin O’Sullivan<https://floridagators.com/sports/baseball/roster/coaches/kevin-o-sullivan/1551>.
FROM HEAD COACH KEVIN O’SULLIVAN
On the win…
“First of all, congratulate Siena for bringing the energy that they did. I don’t know how long they’re on the bus for, probably 20 hours or so. They bused down here from New York. Got in here at nine o’clock this morning. We have an hour and a half rain delay, and they had more energy than we did. We talked about it yesterday, that historically, this fourth weekend, we have not played well for whatever reason. We needed to bring the same type of energy into this weekend that we did last weekend…”
On Sproat’s outing and the group as a whole…
“We just, as coaches, did not do a good enough job to prepare our guys to play, bottom line. For whatever reason, I don’t have the answers for it, but when you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you’ve seen just about everything. Looked like Brandon’s tempo was a little bit slower than normal. He was 1.5, 1.6 to the plate, which when he does that, he’s usually not in sync. I’m sure he’s going to be much better next weekend than he was tonight. It was just a collective group. It wasn’t just Brandon. It was everybody to be honest with you.”
On takeaways from the game…
“I thought [Nick Ficarrota] came and did a nice job and I thought Brandon [Neely] came in and did a nice job, but it’s not how we drew it up. We were going to try to keep Brandon [Sproat] to about 75 pitches because it’s a short week, so we got him out of there after four… Obviously Tyler hit the home run and had a couple of hits tonight, but other than that there wasn’t a whole lot to be pleased with.”
UP NEXT
Florida and Siena meet again on Saturday at 4 p.m. with coverage on SEC Network+.
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