Florida Gators

  OMAHA, Neb. -- When the Gators run onto the field for the top of the first inning here Sunday night -- yes, the Gators will be the home team -- it will have been 355 days since they exited TD Ameritrade Park with their first national championship.

The road to a repeat starts at 7 p.m. ET against Texas Tech.

The Gators spent much of their trip back to the College World Series on cruise control, earning a share of the Southeastern Conference regular-season title with a week remaining. That's when the fuel tank started to get low.
 
The Gators finished the regular season by getting swept at Mississippi State, and then lost two of three games in the SEC Tournament. Injuries to starting pitcher Brady Singer and slugger JJ Schwarz didn't help.

However, Florida rediscovered its winning ways in the NCAA Tournament and advanced to Omaha with a dramatic victory over SEC rival Auburn in the Gainesville Super Regional.

In his 11th season, head coach Kevin O'Sullivan has a team capable of repeating. Still, nothing comes easy in Omaha and no one knows that better than O'Sullivan, who has the Gators in the CWS for the seventh time during his tenure.

"We hit a little stumbling block towards the end of the year,'' O'Sullivan said. "The more times you come out here, the more you appreciate it because you know how difficult it is. So we know how difficult it is to get to this point. And we're certainly not taking that for granted."

The Gators plan to carry that approach onto the field Sunday.

For a closer look, here is our CWS primer:
 

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FLORIDA

Record: 47-19, 20-10 in Southeastern Conference

Coach: Kevin O'Sullivan, 11th year (495-227, .686)

NCAA Tournament: 34th appearance all-time (11th consecutive)

Tournament record: 113-74 (12 trips to College World Series)
 
CWS record: 19-22 (one national title, 2017)



How they got here: The Gators beat Columbia and Jacksonville in the Gainesville Regional before a loss to Florida Atlantic forced a winner-take-all championship game that UF won. Florida then defeated Auburn in three games to take the Gainesville Super Regional title on a walk-off home run by Austin Langworthy in the bottom of the 11th inning.

Player to watch: Third baseman Jonathan India emerged as one of the nation's top players in 2018, earning SEC Player of the Year honors and going fifth overall to the Cincinnati Reds in the MLB amateur draft. India is 7-for-29 in eight career CWS games, including a key two-run double in Game 1 of last year's championship series against LSU.

Quote of note: "I think the strength of our team right now as it's been for the last few years is our starting pitching. Brady Singer has been as good a competitor as we've ever had in this program right there with Alex Faedo and Logan Shore and Hudson Randall and a bunch of other guys, and Jackson Kowar has developed into a heck of a pitcher for us." – O'Sullivan on his team entering the CWS

Buzz: Defending national champion Florida is back in Omaha for a school-record fourth consecutive season and opens against the Red Raiders, who knocked the Gators out of the 2016 CWS in an elimination game. After losing six of seven games entering the NCAA Tournament, the Gators have won five of seven since. The potential return of senior captain JJ Schwarz offers a boost to an offense that has struggled in recent weeks in his absence. India and outfielder Wil Dalton (19 homers, team-high 60 RBIs) form a potent 1-2 punch in the lineup. As O'Sullivan mentioned Friday, the Gators are built around their starting pitching and closer Michael Byrne, who factors large into Florida's bid to repeat. Langworthy (.294, 4, 28) hit the ball well in the Gainesville Super Regional and provides left-handed pop in the lineup along with shortstop Deacon Liput (.291, 9, 37) and second baseman Blake Reese (.247, 5, 43). One area of concern is the defense, which has been unusually shaky in the postseason. If Schwarz returns and plays first base, he isn't the same defensively as Keenan Bell, who has saved multiple throwing errors in the postseason with his glove.
 
TEXAS TECH

Record: 44-18, 15-9 in Big 12 Conference

Coach: Tim Tadlock, sixth year (238-130, .647)

NCAA Tournament: 13th appearance all-time (third consecutive)

Tournament record: 33-28 (three trips to CWS)
 
CWS record: 1-4 (no national titles)
 

Less than 24 hours away until we take center stage in Omaha! #WreckEm pic.twitter.com/HdIStaalGQ

— Texas Tech Baseball (@TTU_Baseball) June 16, 2018

How they got here: The Red Raiders swept three games in the Lubbock Regional, including a pair of victories over Louisville. In the Lubbock Super Regional, Texas Tech defeated Duke in the first game, lost Game 2, and then clinched its third trip to the CWS in five years with a 6-2 win in Game 3, highlighted by home runs from Gabe Holt and Michael Davis.

Player to watch: Sophomore third baseman Josh Jung is a player the Gators must be careful pitching to. Jung has a team-high .390 average with 12 home runs and 78 RBI, which rank fourth nationally. Jung needs three hits to reach 100 for the season and that includes 17 doubles and six triples. His .493 on-base percentage is 11th in the country.

Quote of note: "You go back and you look at our super regional games, I think probably not the way you actually want to draw it up, but the guys had the fortitude and the resiliency to get here, and anything can happen once you get here." – Tadlock on surviving the three-games series with Duke

Buzz: Texas Tech is back in Omaha after missing out a season ago. The Red Raiders are a team built more around their offense. They have six players with at least 40 RBI and are 20-0 when they hit two or more home runs. The pitching staff has an ERA of 4.40, the highest of the eight teams in the CWS. However, the Gators had little success against senior right-hander Davis Martin (7-5, 4.50 ERA) two years ago when the then-sophomore pitched seven scoreless innings in Texas Tech's 3-2 win to eliminate the No. 1 overall seed Gators. The Red Raiders lost No. 1 starter Steven Gingery, the 2017 Big 12 Pitcher of the Year, to an injury in his first start of the season. Caleb Killian (9-2, 3.04), Ryan Shetter (5-0, 3.03) and Ty Harpenau (7-2, 3.38) did a nice job of picking up the slack. Offensively, Big 12 Freshman of the Year Holt is 12-for-26 (.462) in the NCAA Tournament and has 29 stolen bases in 30 attempts. Sophomore outfielder Grant Little is batting .372 with 12 homers and 73 RBI. Senior outfielder Zach Rheams has a team-high 17 homers and is one of six Red Raiders hitting .300 or better.