Stellar Pitching Pushes No. 15 Florida Past North Florida
Starting pitcher Brandon Sproat earned his first win of the season en route to a career night and Colby Halter provided all the offense the Gators needed with a two-run shot in the third inning.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Starting pitcher Brandon Sproat provided a career-high five innings and eight strikeouts to earn the victory while Colby Halter launched a two-run home run to lift No. 15 Florida to a 3-1 win against North Florida at Florida Ballpark on Wednesday night.
With the win, the Gators (3-2) swept their first midweek slate of the season following yesterday’s 8-1 victory over Stetson in DeLand. Halter paced the Gators offensively versus North Florida, going 2-for-4 with one home run, two RBI and one run scored in the winning effort.
Florida opened the scoring in the second inning following a pair of scoreless frames from starting pitcher Brandon Sproat. Coming off a four-hit day in his collegiate debut, Tucker Talbott drove in the first run of the night with an RBI groundout to shortstop.
After North Florida (1-4) went down in order in the top of the third, Kendrick Calilao led off the bottom half with a long double to left-center field. Two batters later, Halter connected on a deep home run off the batter’s eye in center field to make it 3-0 in favor of the Gators.
Sproat continued to mow down batters in the fourth, setting down the Osprey in order while notching a then-career high of six strikeouts. North Florida finally got to the sophomore right-hander in the sixth inning, pushing a run across via a bases-loaded walk to cut the Florida lead to 3-1.
Right-hander Blake Purnell relieved Sproat to begin the sixth, blanking the Osprey across 1.2 shutout innings of relief. Right-handed relief pitcher Ryan Slater replaced Purnell with two outs and runners at the corners in the seventh, inducing a flyout to right field to navigate the Gators through the frame unscathed.
Slater returned to the hill in the eighth and ninth innings, holding North Florida scoreless to earn his second save of the season in as many chances. He finished with 2.1 innings pitched on two hits and struck out a career-high four batters.
Sproat (1-1) earned his first win of the season, pitching a career-high 5.0 innings with one earned run allowed on four hits and one walk. The Pace, Fla. native also set a career high with eight strikeouts, doubling his previous best of four.
North Florida starting pitcher Darin Kilfoyl (0-1) received the loss. Kilfoyl threw 2.1 innings with three earned runs allowed on two hits and one walk.
NOTABLES
- Making his first start of the season, Sproat set new career highs with 5.0 innings pitched and eight strikeouts. His previous career bests were 4.0 innings and four strikeouts.
- With 13 strikeouts tonight, the Florida pitching staff has registered double-digit strikeouts in each of the first-five games of the 2022 season.
- The Gators rise to 10-1 vs. North Florida over the previous-11 meetings and now own a three-game winning streak against the Osprey.
- Florida is 16-5 against North Florida under head coach Kevin O’Sullivan.
- Florida improves to 29-6 across the program’s last-35 regular season games at Florida Ballpark.
- The Gators are 14-3 in their last-17 regular season home games.
- Talbott made his second-straight start after failing to appear in any games throughout his first two seasons in Orange & Blue.
- Talbott went 1-for-3 with one RBI in tonight’s win over North Florida.
- Sterlin Thompson and Halter extended their season-opening hit streaks to five games.
FROM HEAD COACH KEVIN O’SULLIVAN
On Brandon Sproat’s performance…
“The idea was to get him out there and roll him as long as he could. He got through the first-four innings without a whole lot of pressure. They put together a good fifth inning, but he made some big pitches with the bases loaded. It probably was the difference in the ballgame to be quite honest with you. Really pleased with how he started. That’s another arm to give us a chance. Whether he stays in the midweek or not, I don’t know, but tonight he threw really good. Like I said, in the first-four innings his command was outstanding. His stuff is good enough to get anybody out the way he pitched tonight, so really pleased with his start.”
On Ryan Slater…
“His fastball is good enough. He will touch 93. It’s not like he is throwing 85 or 88. He’s got a really good slider. He can throw strikes to both righties and lefties. He’s got a really good changeup. Right now, he doesn’t even have a great feel for it. He gives us a chance. If you beat him, you beat him. He throws strikes. In the ninth inning there, he had a chance to put away the right-hander with some sliders. He ran a 3-2 count and threw a fastball and got a base hit to get the tying run to the plate. Other than that, he was good tonight.”
On the offensive performance…
“The reality of it is, our offense has got to get going a little bit more. We had a good night the first night of the year and last night was a good night offensively. It’s really hard. Rene Lastres, I want to get him in the game. We’ve got three really, really talented outfielders. I want to get them some at bats. We’ve got a lot of young pitchers. Other than the first game of the year and last night, everything has been a two-run ball game. It’s making it a little difficult. We’ve got to kind of spread ourselves out and give us some room so we can get some of these young pitchers out there to get some experience without being so pressure packed. It is what it is. Get some of these young guys going. At some point, some of our older players are going to have to start swinging the bat a little bit better.”
UP NEXT
The Gators host Georgia State this upcoming weekend in a three-game series at Florida Ballpark from Feb. 25-27. All three games will stream live on SEC Network+.
