Florida improves to 2-2 on the season thanks to a 4-for-5 night from Tucker Talbott in his collegiate debut while Sterlin Thompson added three hits and three RBI.
DeLand, Fla. – No. 15 Florida used a combined seven hits and five RBI from Tucker Talbott and Sterlin Thompson to pick up an 8-1 midweek victory over Stetson at Melching Field on Tuesday night.
Making his collegiate debut, Talbott paced the Gators with four hits en route to a 4-for-5 night with one double, two RBI and one run. Thompson finished 3-for-5 at the plate, launching his third home run of the season to finish 3-for-5 with three RBI and one run scored.
The Gators (2-2) jumped out to an early 2-0 lead against the Hatters (2-2) in the first inning, as each of the first-four batters of the game reached safely. Colby Halter led off the night with a single to right and advanced to second on a Jud Fabian walk. With Halter in scoring position, Sterlin Thompson flared one into shallow center, driving in Halter with an RBI single. Fabian later came in to score as Josh Rivera bounced into a six-four-three double play.
In a scheduled bullpen game, Florida starting pitcher Timmy Manning fired a scoreless first inning to set the tone on the mound for the Gators. Freshman right-hander Karl Hartman relieved Manning to begin the second, matching him with a shutout frame of his own and notching a strikeout in the process.
Leading off the third, Thompson maintained his torrid start to the campaign with a no-doubt home run over the right field wall. Talbott later added to the advantage with an RBI double to left field, improving to 2-for-2 on the day with his first-two collegiate hits.
With a 4-0 lead in hand, Florida surrendered its first run of the game in the bottom of the third. Stetson put runners at the corners, allowing Hatters center fielder Cameron Hill to score on a wild pitch by Hartman.
From the fourth inning on, it was all Gators. By producing back-to-back doubles in the bottom of the fourth, Thompson brought in J. Fabian with a two-bagger to deep right center. One inning later, Talbott improved to 3-for-3 on the day with an RBI single through the left side. Deric Fabian followed that up with a mirror-image single to left field of his own, bringing in Talbott to push Florida’s lead to 7-1.
Nick Ficarrotta held Stetson in check on the pitching end, entering in the third inning and blanking the Hatters across 4.2 scoreless frames. The redshirt freshman right-hander struck out six batters while allowing just one hit and one walk.
Florida added another run in the seventh, with Talbott picking up his fourth hit of the night along the way. D. Fabian drove in his second-straight run for the Gators, shooting one back up the middle off Stetson pitcher Austin Amaral to plate Rivera and make it an 8-1 ballgame.
Following Ficarrotta’s departure from the game, relievers Blake Purnell and Brandon Neely produced scoreless frames in the eighth and ninth to close the door and hand Florida their first midweek win of the season.
Ficarrotta earned the win thanks to his dominant relief performance, going 4.2 shutout innings for the Gators. Stetson starting pitcher Chris DeFabbia was saddled with the loss, pitching 2.1 innings with four earned runs allowed on five hits and three walks.
Colby Halter, Thompson, Rivera, Talbott and D. Fabian all recorded multi-hit games for Florida. As a result, the Gators registered a season-high 14 hits in Tuesday’s win.
NOTABLES
* Making his collegiate debut, Talbott went 4-for-5 with one double, two RBI and one run.
* Thompson finished a triple shy of the cycle en route to a 3-for-5 day.
* Thompson is now batting .412/.444/1.000 on the season with three home runs, one double, eight RBI and three runs.
* The Gators improve to 84-35 all-time against the Hatters including 36-24 in DeLand.
* Florida is now 9-1 against Stetson across the last-10 meetings.
* Under O’Sullivan: 9-1
* Florida is now 13-3 against Stetson across the last-16 matchups.
* Today’s game represented Manning’s third-career start vs. Stetson.
* The Gators are 3-0 vs. Stetson when Manning starts despite the southpaw receiving a no-decision in all-three outings.
FROM HEAD COACH KEVIN O’SULLIVAN
On the team’s energy…
“You probably saw it tonight. [Nick] Ficarrotta comes off the mound. We scored a couple of runs. He goes out and puts a zero on the board with seven pitches. I’m the first one out the dugout fist pumping. These types of things are important and they help your teammates perform better. This weekend we weren’t the aggressor. I don’t want to take anything away from Liberty, they played their tails off and pitched really well, but we need to have a little bit more pep in our step. We need to be the aggressor because that’s what we are used to seeing. That’s what the game is all about. Hopefully them seeing it visually sends the right message. It is a long season and this is only one game, but they did respond tonight.”
On Tucker Talbott’s performance…
“Sometimes we make decisions like that and players make you look smart. He’s been around the program. He struck out one time the entire fall against our pitchers, so our players have confidence in him. Obviously, he had a great night and I thought Sterlin had a great night. Blake Purnell, that’s two good outings in a row for him. He looks really sharp. It looks like he is going to hopefully be a big piece of our bullpen. The last inning with [Brandon] Neely, that’s important. To the average fan, you’re up seven runs and it seems like it’s a meaningless inning, but for me, for him to go out there and throw the ball the way he did, it should give him confidence for the next time he goes out. That’s why we didn’t run Blake out there for the ninth. Obviously, we want to be able to have him for tomorrow, but situations like that, they’re important for these freshman pitchers. I thought he did really well as well.”
On Sterlin Thompson’s start to the season…
“He can hit. Even him, I think the game maybe sped up on him a little bit on Saturday and Sunday, too. I mean it’s opening weekend. The hard thing to simulate in these intrasquad games is that you go from playing intrasquad games to February 18 and the lights are on. There is no Spring Training. There is no month to work through the kinks. This is really our Spring Training. We are working through things to try to figure out our team. The idea is to win every time you take the field, but it takes some time to get all the pieces together, see how the players perform. There’s a lot of questions still, but today was a step in the right direction.”
UP NEXT
The Gators return home on Wednesday, Feb. 23 to host North Florida at 7 p.m. at Florida Ballpark on SEC Network+.
