Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – No. 2 Florida (29-5) meets No. 6 Florida State (22-8) in third and final Sunshine State showdown on Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Dick Howser Stadium. The Gators posted a 6-0 shutout of the Seminoles on March 15 in Gainesville and picked up a 3-2 victory at The Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville on March 29.
 
The game can be heard through FloridaGators.com on the Gator IMG Sports Network with Jeff Cardozo and Steve Russell and the game will be streamed on ESPN3.
 
QUICK HITS ABOUT THE GATORS

• Florida (29-5/8-4 SEC) split four games last week, defeating Jacksonville (7-2) before dropping its weekend series to No. 10 Mississippi State (8-2, 4-10, 1-2).
• The Gators' school-record 29-game winning streak at McKethan Stadium came to an end in the second meeting with the Bulldogs and UF fell in Sunday's finale to suffer its first series loss at home since last April.
• Head Coach Kevin O'Sullivan's squad is batting .298, has registered a 2.98 earned run average and has complied a fielding percentage of .983.
• The Orange and Blue is 22-2 at home, 5-3 away and 2-0 at neutral sites.
• Through four SEC series, the Gators are 8-4 overall and 2-2 on the conference weekends, sweeping Missouri and No. 1 Texas A&M and falling to Kentucky and No. 10 Mississippi State.
• Sophomore shortstop Dalton Guthrie leads the team in batting average (.356) and runs (28), while junior first baseman Peter Alonso (.336) has a team-leading 34 RBI.
• Freshman third baseman Jonathan India is batting .343 overall and a team-high .409 in league play, sophomore right fielder Jeremy Vasquez (.324) is on a career-high eight-game hitting streak and junior center fielder Buddy Reed (.302) is 16-for-18 on the basepaths and has scored 26 runs.
• Out of the bullpen, junior LHP Kirby Snead (3-0) has a 0.79 ERA in a team-leading 20 appearances and junior RHP Shaun Anderson (3-0, 1.14) has six saves, tallied 35 strikeouts and permitted one walk in 23.2 innings.
• The trio of freshman Konnor Pilkington, junior Zac Houston and junior Reid Humphreys did not allow a run until the ninth inning as the Bulldogs notched a series-clinching 2-1 win on Sunday.
• Sophomore Ryan Gridley homered in the fifth inning and freshman Elih Marrero (3-for-5) delivered a bases-loaded RBI single in the seventh to account for the scoring for MSU.
• Making his first weekend start of the season, junior RHP Dane Dunning (2-2, 2.89) yielded one run in five innings. Alonso had his team-leading seventh homer in the ninth for the Gators and Anderson struck out a career-high six batters over three innings.
• MSU squared the series on Saturday night, 10-4. The Bulldogs scored four runs in the first, added five runs in the fifth and one in the ninth and also turned three double plays to snap a six-game slide to the Gators.
• Florida used a five-run fifth inning to defeat Mississippi State, 8-2, on Friday night. Junior right-hander Logan Shore (6-0, 2.66) worked 5.2 innings to pick up the victory and was supported by a balanced offense in which eight of the nine UF starters contributed a hit.
• The Gators also ended MSU junior Dakota Hudson's (4-2) school-record stretch of 34.2 consecutive innings without yielding an earned run.
• Although Mississippi State scored twice in the second inning to open the scoring, the Gators cut the deficit in half during the third inning, when India (1-for-4, two runs) scored on a wild pitch. Florida exploded for five runs on seven hits and batted around in the fifth to take a 6-2 lead. Entering the game, Hudson had surrendered just five earned runs in 48.2 innings this season. Vasquez and Maldonado (2-for-4, two runs) opened with back-to-back singles and India tied the game with a double into right center. After Guthrie walked, Reed put the Gators on top with a single into left field that scored Maldonado and sophomore JJ Schwarz (2-for-5, two RBI) followed with a two-run single that plated India and Guthrie. Freshman Deacon Liput (.309, 20 RBI) delivered a one-out RBI single to bring across Reed.
• The Gators start a four-game road trip on Tuesday night at Florida State (22-8/9-2 ACC) and then travel to Arkansas (20-12/4-8 SEC) for a Thursday-Saturday series at Baum Stadium.

 
DRAWING THE START
Freshman right-hander Jackson Kowar (3-0, 3.58) will oppose Florida State redshirt sophomore right-hander Ed Voyles (0-0, 1.64). Kowar has made 10 appearances and four starts spanning 27.2 innings and has 35 strikeouts and eight walks. The righty worked five innings against the Seminoles in Jacksonville and earned the victory after allowing one run and five hits.
 
LAST MEETING BETWEEN THE GATORS & SEMINOLES
Kowar limited No. 8 Florida State to one run over five innings as No. 3 Florida notched a 3-2 victory on March 29 at The Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville. A crowd of 9,035 fans watched the Gators secure the regular-season series and emerge victorious for the ninth time in the last 11 meetings between the Sunshine State rivals.
 
Kowar scattered five hits, registered four strikeouts and allowed one walk before freshman Brady Singer entered the game with a runner aboard in the sixth. The righty totaled three strikeouts, yielded two hits and an unearned run in three innings and junior Shaun Anderson picked up his fourth save with a perfect ninth in which he had a pair of strikeouts.
 
Freshman Cal Raleigh had given the Seminoles a 1-0 lead in the first inning with a two-out homer to right field. Sophomore Mike Rivera moved the Gators in front, 2-1, the following inning with his sixth homer of the season. Freshman Deacon Liput had singled up the middle against sophomore Drew Carlton (4-1) and Rivera sent a 0-1 pitch over the left-field fence.  
 
After freshman Jonathan India drew a leadoff walk from freshman Cole Sands and stole second base with one down in the third, junior Buddy Reed (2-for-4) roped an RBI triple into the right-field corner for a 3-1 score. Florida State mounted a two-out rally in the fourth, as senior Jackson Lueck (2-for-4) singled to left field and sophomore Darren Miller (2-for-4) rifled a double into right field. However, the Gators cut down Lueck at the plate on a picture-perfect relay from sophomore right fielder Jeremy Vasquez to sophomore shortstop Dalton Guthrie to Schwarz. Junior Quincy Nieporte pulled the Seminoles within 3-2 on a two-out RBI single into center field in the eighth.
 
SERIES NUGGETS
Florida State holds a 127-109-1 (.538) advantage in the all-time series, including a 69-41-1 (.626) margin in Tallahassee. Head coach Kevin O'Sullivan is 17-15 (.531) against Florida State, 10-1 (.909) in Gainesville, 4-5 (.444) in Tallahassee and 3-9 (.250) at neutral sites.
 
The Gators had claimed five straight meetings between the Sunshine State rivals before suffering back-to-back losses last season in Jacksonville (8-3 on March 31) and Tallahassee (4-3 in 12 innings on April 14). However, Florida claimed both contests of the NCAA Gainesville Super Regional, 13-5 and 11-4, to advance to the College World Series, and won the first two meetings this season, 6-0, in Gainesville, then 3-2 in Jacksonville.
 
Follow the Gators
FloridaGators.com
Twitter
Instagram
Facebook