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While many UF students are
relaxing during Spring Break, the top-ranked Gators played as if
they wanted to join them.
No. 1 Florida sleepwalked through a midweek contest against Georgia
Southern on Tuesday, losing 7-0 in by far its worst performance of
the season.
“I didn’t see it [coming] to be honest with you,” coach Kevin
O’Sullivan said. “I can’t remember us playing this poorly. Pitching
wise, our fielding. Couple situations where we rushed throws. I
think we had four errors and it arguably could’ve been six… We made
some base running mistakes again. I have no excuse or no
explanation. We just played poorly.”
Looking flat all evening, the Gators (10-2) ended their 24-game
home winning streak after committing four errors and striking out a
season-high 11 times.
UF recorded just three hits — all singles — and made two more base
running blunders.
“Our zone was not good tonight, it just wasn’t,” Florida’s manager
said. “Swinging at balls, taking strikes. Our swings were too big
and out of control.”
Florida elected to start Nick Maronde and group of relievers
against the Eagles (8-5) because of its busy schedule recently.
Maronde tossed 2.2 scoreless innings, striking out five.
The Gators escaped a contentious bases loaded jam in the third
inning, but the Eagles got on the board in the fifth after
back-to-back infield singles and a wild pitch from UF righty Greg
Larson. Shawn Payne then made it 2-0 Georgia Southern with an RBI
single to center.
In the seventh inning, the Eagles plated three more runs after some
sloppy defense by Florida. Lefty reliever Steven “Paco” Rodriguez
booted a play to start the inning, and later, freshman Zach Powers
had a ball skip off his glove into the outfield, scoring two more
runs.
The Eagles scored twice in the ninth off freshman Jonathon Crawford
before Austin Maddox made his third appearance of the season and
struck out two, ending the inning.
“It just seemed like everything that could go wrong, went wrong,”
O’Sullivan said. “It was just one of those nights. Hopefully it’s
one of those things we just flush it out of our system.”
UF plays South Florida in Tampa tonight at 7.
Etc.: Nolan Fontana — marred in a 0 for 16 drought
— led off the first inning with a single. … Fontana also committed
hit third error of the season; he had four all of last year.
…Daniel Pigott went 1 for 3, extending his hitting streak to 11
games.
