It was a tale of two teams going in opposite directions.
In one corner stood Miami, a powerhouse year-in and year-out, who has made it to the College World Series 11 of the last 15 years.
But it was 11th-ranked UF, the No. 8 national seed, who earned the right to host a NCAA Baseball Regional this year.
UF and Miami met in Gainesville during the regular season on Feb. 27 - March 1, and the 'Canes swept all three games by a combined score of 26-8.
The Gators showed how far they have come over the weekend, sweeping all three games, including 8-2 and 16-5 wins against the Hurricanes.
UF will host Southern Miss, winners of the Atlanta Regional, in a best-of-three Super Regional this weekend with a berth to the College World Series on the line. This past weekend's victory marked the first time in 11 tries that UF advanced out of a regional that also included Miami.
"We didn't really talk about that, to be honest with you," UF coach Kevin O'Sullivan said of the long history of losses to Miami. "We're not the same team that we were the second weekend of the year.
"The past is the past."
UF jumped out to a comfortable lead Sunday night, thanks to a five-run outburst in the top of the first. (The teams flip a coin to determine home-away. Miami's win led to UF being in the away dugout in its own ballpark.)
Hurricanes starter Iden Nazario lasted only .1 of an inning, giving five earned runs behind doubles by Jonathan Pigott and Teddy Foster.
Gators first baseman Preston Tucker, who took home Regional MVP honors, said UF got inspiration for its offensive breakout from watching Florida State's game in the locker room before the game. The Seminoles scored 20 runs in the first three innings en route to a 37-6 win against Ohio State on Sunday.
"We figured, 'Why can't we do the same thing?'" Tucker said. "We started getting guys on base early &ndash one outs, no outs. Every time we got a runner on second or third, we scored them."
UF blew the game open with a seven-run fifth inning, in which all of the Gators' runs came with two outs. Tucker and Josh Adams hit back-to-back home runs during the barrage that included seven straight hits by UF batters. The Gators had 22 hits in the 16-5 victory on Sunday, matching a school postseason record.
Miami answered with four in the bottom of the fifth to close the gap to 16-5 but would get no closer. UF starter Alex Panteliodis went 4.2 innings and gave up five earned, but four pitchers (Patrick Keating, Nick Maronde, Tony Davis, Billy Bullock) combined to pitch 4.1 scoreless innings and shut the door. Keating (4-3, 4.66 ERA) picked up the win in relief.
"That's kinda been our m.o. all year," O'Sullivan said. "Two-strike hits, two-out runs. That comes from grit, and you grind it out and you don't give in.
"Those two-out runs &ndash they certainly give the team a lot of momentum and they certainly did tonight as well."
Earlier in the weekend, UF got a tougher-than-expected opener against Bethune-Cookman on Friday night. The Wildcats scored the first four runs of the game and led 7-5 going into the bottom of the ninth. Tucker scored on a Matt den Dekker RBI single and Gators catcher Teddy Foster answered with a one-out, two-run game-winning single to clinch a 8-7 victory.
UF won its first game with Miami 8-2 Saturday night thanks to a stellar performance by senior Stephen Locke. Locke (5-2, 4.02) picked up his first career postseason win after going 7.1 innings and giving up only two unearned runs. He left to a standing ovation midway through the top of the eighth inning.
Then Sunday, UF jumped out early and never looked back en route to the 16-5, Regional-clinching win. The Gators wanted to avoid a winner-take-all third game against the Hurricanes, which would have been played Monday night.
"We wanted to do everything we possibly could to win (Sunday night's) game," O'Sullivan said. "We didn't want to go into this game with the mindset that we have one to play with. If you lose that one (Sunday night), obviously the momentum shifts back to Miami."
Instead UF gets to shift its focus towards the fact it is two wins away from the College World Series.
