Until the last pitch of the series, it was impossible to tell whether UF or Kentucky was the better baseball team.
But with a 3-1 count in the bottom of the 10th inning, the answer finally showed itself: Kentucky, by 90 feet.
After a leadoff double from Wildcats left fielder Keenan Wiley, Collin Cowgill reached on a bunt and Sawyer Carroll got to first with an intentional walk.
UF freshman Tommy Toledo then walked home the winning run, giving some closure to an up-and-down weekend.
Despite a quality outing from starter Stephen Locke, the Gators could not get their offense going enough to pass the Wildcats and fell 3-2 in Lexington on Sunday afternoon.
The Gators (25-15, 10-8 Southeastern Conference) lost the first game of the series on Friday, 11-7, but got out to an early lead and held it to win Saturday's contest 13-7.
The losses mark UF's third straight conference-series defeat.
Interestingly, because of the Gators' travel schedule, the teams agreed to have no new innings begin after 4 p.m. If Toledo managed to escape the 10th, the game would have ended in a 2-2 tie.
UF could not seem to break through against No. 25 Kentucky's Greg Dombrowski until the top of the sixth inning.
Left fielder Avery Barnes singled through the left side, and center fielder Matt den Dekker smacked his second home run of the weekend to right field, tying the game at 2-2.
"I thought den Dekker's home run gave us a lift," UF coach Kevin O'Sullivan said. "The defense was very good; we just couldn't stretch anything more offensively. … Offensively, we just didn't get it done today."
But den Dekker's shot was all the Gators could do against the Wildcats' pitching staff. UF's five-through-nine hitters walked away from the plate empty-handed.
"We had a couple situations where we let balls go down the middle of the plate that we could have taken good swings at," O'Sullivan said.
The Gators got a great start from Locke, who went 6 2/3 innings with eight strikeouts. Toledo (4-4), who usually starts on Sundays, came out of the bullpen to strike out Cowgill and pitched a scoreless eighth and ninth inning before collapsing in the 10th.
Cowgill got things started for the Wildcats in the bottom of the first inning with a home run to left field.
On Saturday, UF got five hits, three RBIs and three runs from Barnes. Barnes was hitting eighth in the order, very different from his usual spot at the top, but the move did not impact his ability to swing. He leads the team with a .389 batting average and was 9 for 16 on the weekend.
Starter Patrick Keating (7-0, 2.68 ERA) improved on his already sterling record, allowing three runs in six innings.
UF scored more than 10 runs for the first time since an 11-10 extra-innings loss to North Florida on April 2.
Saturday's game lasted four hours and 20 minutes.
First baseman Brandon McArthur got a start on both Friday and Saturday, hitting 5 for 9 with two RBIs. The weekend marked his first action since rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament in that same April 2 game against the Ospreys.
McArthur's knee was too stiff for him to participate on Sunday.
Friday's game saw the Gators take a 7-6 lead in the seventh inning off a two-run homer by den Dekker.
However, UF's bullpen was unable to hold the lead. Locke allowed five runs - two earned - in the bottom of the eighth, and the Gators could not rally for the win.
A radio broadcast contributed to this report.
