A season's worth of accomplishments earned UF the No. 8 national seed and the right to host an NCAA Super Regional, but Southern Miss continued to defy the odds in its unlikely run for Omaha, Neb., with a 9-7 victory in McKethan Stadium on Saturday.
The Golden Eagles finished fifth in Conference-USA after posting a 12-12 league record and weren't even sure they played well enough to earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament's field of 64.
Now, the Gators will have to win two in a row to keep the Eagles, who reached Super Regional play for the first time in program history, from advancing to the College World Series.
"This has been a storybook end of the year for us," Southern Miss second baseman James Ewing said. "With us not knowing, it was kind of a coin flip not knowing if we were going to get into the tournament or not."
Southern Miss was awarded the three-seed in the Atlanta Regional and became the only three-seed to advance to a super regional after defeating host Georgia Tech.
The upstart Golden Eagles jumped on starter Stephen Locke and the Gators early, getting out to a 2-0 lead after the top half of the third inning.
As UF freshman Daniel Pigott came out to leadoff the bottom half, the sky grayed and heavy rain pushed the teams off the field for an hour delay.
When play resumed, Southern Miss' momentum stalled, and the Gators chased starter JR Ballinger, taking a 4-2 lead behind a two-run homer from senior Teddy Foster and doubles from Jonathan Pigott and Josh Adams.
Each team pitched a scoreless fourth, before trading the lead in each of the next three half innings with the Eagles eventually holding a 9-6 advantage heading to the bottom of the sixth.
"Locke wasn't as sharp as he usually is when he came back out, but neither was their guy," Foster said.
The game, instead, turned to the two bullpens where UF was outclassed by Southern Miss.
Senior reliever Patrick Keating gave up four runs in the sixth, putting the Golden Eagles ahead for good, while senior Jonathan Johnston shut the Gators down over 3.2 scoreless innings before handing the ball over to closer Collin Cargill in the ninth.
"We were in trouble, Florida is a great hitting team," Southern Miss coach Corky Palmer said. "(Johnston) gave us a chance to get our momentum back with the bats. He was a big part of this game."
If the Gators are to come back and win the final two games of the series, UF coach Kevin O'Sullivan knows his pitching staff has to slow down the Golden Eagles' hitters.
"We just got to get somebody to give us a chance and put up zeros so we can get the momentum," he said.
