Before offering Thomas a spot on the roster, the coaching staff called senior catcher BT Riopelle, who spent 2019 through 2021 at Coastal Carolina and was teammates with Thomas for the latter two years.
After a lengthy rain delay, redshirt freshman Ryan Slater allowed four runs in the eighth inning to the Sooners, a back-breaking frame that the Gators failed to recover from, losing 5-4 in a game that came down to the final at-bat.
The only problem was Florida had exhausted its bullpen hours earlier in an effort to topple Central Michigan. Now, the Gators needed an unlikely hero.
Florida got the necessary win, defeating the Chippewas 6-5 Sunday afternoon.
In a classic can’t-get-out-of-its-own-way performance from UF, the regional’s 1-seed fell to Sunday’s loser’s bracket following spotty pitching and lackluster hitting.
One thing for certain, though, is that the crowd brought the most energy of the year Friday night, and it came at the right time.
A 4-2 record in the Southeastern Conference Tournament last week secured a top-16 seed in the NCAA Tournament, granting Florida the ability to host a regional in Gainesville. Now, UF welcomes Oklahoma, Liberty and Central Michigan to Condron Ballpark for the event.
Even after receiving a beat-down at the hands of the No. 1-ranked Tennessee Volunteers in the tournament finale, the team did more than enough in Hoover to bring postseason play back to Condron Ballpark.
Still, a fifth-inning explosion followed by a three-run sixth sufficiently iced a game in which the UF offense was nowhere to be found until it was too late. The seven-seeded Florida Gators fell in the Sunday finale to the top-seeded Vols’, 8-5.
Manning worked five scoreless innings against the two-seeded Aggies, and the offense scrapped for runs in all but two innings. In one of the more miraculous wins of the season, the seven-seeded Gators booked their trip to the tournament final Sunday with a 9-0 win.
Ficarrotta entered the game in relief to work a career-high 6.1 innings en route to a shutout performance. As a team, the seven-seeded Gators topped the 11-seeded Crimson Tide in a high-scoring 11-6 game.
Regardless, with a return to Gainesville waiting for them if they fell, the seven-seeded Gators rallied to put together a solid 7-5 victory over the three-seeded Razorbacks. The win knocked off the reigning SEC Tournament champions, and kept the Gators fighting through Saturday.
In arguably the worst performance from the team all season, seven-seed Florida fell to the two-seeded Aggies, 10-0, receiving a run-rule after the top of the seventh inning.
No. 6 Florida defeated No. 10 South Carolina 2-1 in extra innings Tuesday to secure a second round appearance for UF in the Southeastern Conference Tournament in Hoover, Alabama.
Florida (35-20, 15-15) fell to South Carolina (27-27, 13-17) 4-1 in what could be the final game in Condron Ballpark for seven UF seniors.
Solutions by The State News
