Florida Gators

OMAHA, Neb. – Jonah Girand had the best seat in TD Ameritrade Park on Tuesday afternoon. He also got a sneak peek of what was to come before any of the helpless Texas Longhorns who stepped into the batter's box against Florida starter Jackson Kowar.

Following Kowar's pregame bullpen session, Girand shared what he witnessed behind the plate with a teammate.

"I remember telling someone that his change-up was looking really good in the pen,'' said Girand, who has caught Kowar's last four outings. "And then he took it out into the game and really showed how well he can locate with it."

Kowar delivered a masterful performance for the Gators with their season on the line, tossing 6 2/3 scoreless innings in Florida's 6-1 victory over Texas in a College World Series elimination game. Kowar struck out a career-high 13 batters, all of them swinging.

The 13 strikeouts set a school record for a CWS game and is the most by a pitcher in an outing of less than seven innings in the CWS in 40 years. Kowar's performance also marks the most strikeouts by a pitcher in the CWS since the event moved to TD Ameritrade Park in 2011.

Kowar used a mixture of fastballs regularly clocked in the mid-to-high 90s on the radar gun, a biting slider and the change-up that helped make him a first-round pick of the Kansas City Royals in the MLB amateur draft.

Girand had sympathy for those Longhorns taking cuts at Kowar's change-up on Monday in his 121-pitch outing.

"That thing's incredible,'' Girand said. "He can get that thing to sink and drop and go the other way. It's just devastating to hitters."

With Kowar dominating on the mound, the Gators finally chipped in with offensive support in a four-run sixth inning. Nelson Maldonado's two-out RBI single scored Blake Reese to give the Gators a 2-0 lead.

That brought Southeastern Conference Player of the Year Jonathan India to the plate. India crushed a 2-1 pitch from Texas reliever Chase Shugart into the left-field seats for a three-run homer and 5-0 Florida lead.
 
The back-to-back hits with runners in scoring position snapped a 1-for-15 stretch for the Gators with RISP since they arrived in Omaha. Maldonado, who singled up the middle in his first at-bat, took the same approach in the sixth with Reese at second following a double and Deacon Liput at first after a walk.

"I knew [Shugart] was a slider-heavy pitcher,'' Maldonado said. "I was just looking for something up in the zone and something to drive up the middle or just put into play to start a little rally. I just wanted to do anything I could in my power to keep that inning going, start some momentum within the team."

Mission accomplished. India then cleared the bases.

"I was just sitting dead red in that at-bat," India said. "And I got the pitch I wanted and I put a good swing on it. I'm glad I came through like that. We needed that for our team, some momentum. And we needed that. But with Jackson today, he was unbelievable."

While Maldonado and India came through at the plate, the story of Florida's first CWS win in program history as the NCAA Tournament's No. 1 overall seed – Florida went 0-2 in both 2012 and 2016 as the No. 1 seed and lost to Texas Tech on Sunday night – was the pitching of Kowar.

Florida took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first on India's RBI single. In the bottom of the inning, Kowar allowed two of the first three batters he faced to reach base before striking out Zach Zubia and D.J. Petrinsky to escape the jam.

"The first three batters I didn't make really any quality pitches to," Kowar said. "I was lucky it was only first and third and one out on the liner out to left field [by Kody Clemens]. It would have been a real let down for us if I had just given up a two or three spot there in the first right after we had just scrapped a run."

Clemens, the Big 12 Conference Player of the Year whose 24 home runs were the most of any player in this year's CWS, struck out the next two times he faced Kowar.

All he could do as the Longhorns headed back to Austin with their season over was tip his cap to Kowar, Florida's junior right-hander from Charlotte, N.C.

"His change-up, he threw it at mid-thigh, and it ended up right below your knees every single time," Clemens said. "Coming out of his hands it looked like a fastball to most of us. He didn't make many mistakes at the mound."

Kowar gave up a leadoff single to Jake McKenzie in the second, but he then retired nine in a row, including striking out the side in the third. Kowar struck out the side again in the sixth, and after McKenzie and Masen Hibbeler both reached to lead off the seventh, Kowar fanned Tate Shaw and Ryan Reynolds before Gators head coach Kevin O'Sullivan went to reliever Jordan Butler to finish the inning.

Kowar received a standing ovation from the gathering of Florida fans behind the first-base dugout as he departed.

"He was outstanding," O'Sullivan said. "It's probably the best I've seen him. I think on this stage, I think this is about as good as he's pitched all year."

Kowar's 13-strikeout performance was the most in a CWS game since 2010 when UCLA's Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer each recorded that many.

Girand squeezed all of them in his glove. Sometimes the pregame bullpen session tells the story before it actually happens.

"He was looking really good,'' Girand said. "He's got great stuff and he can locate pitches almost like nobody else. It's really easy to go back there and catch him. We're all excited to come back and play another game."