Florida’s bats had been cold all night until the last couple of innings.
The Gators were down to their final out, and senior right fielder Ty Evans hit an RBI single to tie the game at four runs apiece and force the game to go into extra innings.
After a scoreless 10th inning from both teams, the senior led off the 11th inning with a single.
Then, Gators two-way player Jac Caglianone stepped into the box.
Caglianone didn’t hesitate. He swung at the first pitch he saw and crushed a two-run home run over the left-center field wall to extend Florida’s lead to 6-4.
It sealed a massive victory for UF on the road.
The No. 6 Florida Gators (13-9, 3-2 SEC) beat the No. 5 Louisiana State Tigers (19-5, 2-3 SEC) 6-4 Saturday night at Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Evans was fantastic Saturday night.
In addition to his clutch, two-out RBI single in the ninth inning, he made a spectacular sliding grab to record the first out of the 11th inning. He ranged nearly 75 feet to his left and slid into LSU’s bullpen to make an improbable catch in foul territory.
Evans also finished the game with two other hits and produced a run in the eighth and ninth innings to earn the necessary runs to extend the game into extra innings.
He was a major contributor to the Gators’s lineup, which didn’t record its first hit until the fourth inning.
Tigers redshirt sophomore pitcher Gage Jump surrendered three consecutive walks to load up the bases with no outs in the fourth. Florida sophomore second baseman Cade Kurland grounded into a double play, which plated a run and allowed Tyler Shelnut to advance to third.
The Gators finally recorded their first hit, one pitch later, with an RBI single by third baseman Dale Thomas. Florida took a 2-1 lead, which was quickly erased in the next inning.
Gators freshman right-hander Liam Peterson sailed through the first two innings but started to get into trouble during the middle innings.
In the third, Peterson surrendered two hits and a run. The next inning, he surrendered three hits, including a solo home run, to even the game at two runs apiece.
Peterson’s night ended in the fifth inning when he surrendered three extra-base hits. The freshman forfeited home runs to senior outfielder Mac Bingham and sophomore first baseman Jared Jones. He was taken out of the game after allowing a double.
The Gators’ bullpen contained the Tigers’ offense behind a stellar relief performance from freshman right-hander Luke McNeillie.
McNeillie pitched 2 ⅓ innings, and despite getting into some trouble with his command — allowing two walks and three hits — he failed to surrender a run.
It allowed Florida’s offense, which had just two hits heading into the eighth inning, the cushion to figure things out. It finally did in unconventional fashion.
With runners on the corners, Kurland struck out swinging, which would’ve been the final out of the eighth. However, the drop-third-strike rule allowed him to advance to first, and he reached safely as LSU catcher Brody Neal struggled to find the ball behind the backstop.
Caglianone scored, which shaved Florida’s deficit to 4-3.
The Gators were down to their final out and had a runner in scoring position when Evans stepped up to the plate in the top of the ninth inning. With a 1-1 count, he sliced a single through the middle of the infield to push the tying run across the plate.
Florida All-SEC closer Brandon Neely pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to send the game into extra innings.
Both teams went scoreless in the 10th, and Caglianone’s two-run bomb in the 11th earned the Gators their first lead of the night.
Behind a 6-4 lead, junior reliever Ryan Slater recorded the final three outs of the contest for the win.
Florida will return to action against LSU at 3 p.m. Sunday at Alex Box Stadium. The game will be broadcast on SEC Network+.
Contact Luke Adragna at ladragna@alligator.org. Follow him on Twitter @lukeadrag.
Luke Adragna is a third-year journalism student and the Florida Gators football reporter at The Alligator. He is a cat ethusiast and completes the NYT Daily Mini in less than a minute each day.
