No. 23 Baseball Tangles With Ospreys
Monday, March 23, 2009 | Baseball
Sunshine State foes No. 23 Florida (14-7) and UNF (8-15) will meet in a home-and-home series starting on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. in Jacksonville, with the clubs facing off at McKethan Stadium at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The Gators extended their winning streak to five games, matching a season high, and evened their SEC record at 3-3 with a weekend sweep of Tennessee. The Ospreys captured two of three contests at home from fellow Atlantic Sun member Belmont to improve to 3-6 in league action.
Freshman right-hander Anthony DeSclafani (Freehold, N.J.) (1-0, 5.02) will make his fourth start of the season and will oppose UNF junior lefty Michael Kelly (0-1, 6.75). In his last outing, DeSclafani notched his first collegiate victory with five innings of one-run ball as Florida defeated UCF, 7-3, on March 18. He gave up six hits, tallied four strikeouts and permitted an unearned run.
Tuesday night will mark the Gators' first-ever visit to Harmon Stadium, as four of the five previous encounters between the squads have been in Gainesville and the teams met at the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville on April 4, 2006, a 6-5 UNF triumph. Since dropping the first three meetings, the Gators have claimed two-straight wins over the Ospreys.
Rebounding from a sweep at the hands of Arkansas that started league play, UF posted two come-from-behind victories, batted .351 (34-for-97) and out-scored Tennessee, 20-9, over the three games. The Gator bullpen was 3-0 with two saves and registered a 1.80 ERA on the weekend. Over 15.0 innings, the group scattered 11 hits and permitted three runs, with eight strikeouts and just one walk.
Florida's top four hitters in the lineup (Matt den Dekker, Josh Adams, Avery Barnes and Buddy Munroe) were a combined 16-for-43 (.372) with 15 runs, 14 RBI and three home runs versus UT. Trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the eighth inning on Friday, den Dekker clubbed a two-run shot off Nick Hernandez for a dramatic 3-2 win. Until the series opener, the Gators had been 0-25 over the past two years under head coach Kevin O'Sullivan when trailing after seven innings.
Junior Jeff Barfield (Perry, Ga.) had an impressive SEC starting debut, totaling a career-high nine strikeouts over a season-best 6.2 innings on Friday. All nine starters had at least one hit as UF clinched the series with a 10-2 victory on Saturday afternoon. Munroe (3-for-4) had a career-high four RBI and Barnes drove in three runs as part of a 16-hit outburst for the Orange and Blue. Junior Clint Franklin (Orlando, Fla.) captured the first SEC win of his career with 3.2 scoreless and hitless innings.
Barnes broke a 4-4 tie with a seventh-inning triple on Sunday to finish the sweep with a 7-5 triumph, as the Gators overcame a pair of three-run deficits. Barnes (2-for-4) collected two RBI and Adams went 3-for-5 to complete a series in which he batted .500 (6-for-12) and scored four runs. Adams is riding a six-game hitting streak that has raised his average to a team-high .375 and he is 7-for-19 (.368) in conference action. Barnes (.320) leads the squad with 22 runs, 11 walks and four triples and occupies the top spot for UF with a .391 (9-for-23) SEC clip. Freshman Greg Larson (Longwood, Fla.) earned his first collegiate victory with 1.1 scoreless innings in the finale, while junior Billy Bullock (Balm, Fla.) nailed down the final two outs for his fourth save, second of the series. Left-hander Alex Panteliodis (Tampa, Fla.) was chosen as the SEC Freshman of the Week on Monday after two scoreless appearances spanning 8.1 innings last week in which he registered seven strikeouts and issued one walk.
UF edged the Ospreys, 3-2, on April 9 of last season to finish off a two-game, mid-week sweep at home and take the regular-season series by a 2-1 margin. An inning-ending double play in the eighth preserved the one-run triumph, as Jonathan Pigott (Ormond Beach, Fla.) gunned down a UNF runner attempting to score the tying run on a fly ball into shallow right field. Travis Lawler worked 3.2 innings (3 H, 3 K, 1 ER) to pick up the win, while Franklin notched his second save by tossing two scoreless and hitless innings. Pigott was the hero of Tuesday night's game, delivering a tie-breaking two-out RBI single in the seventh en route to a 5-3 win. The Gators had overcome a 3-0 deficit with three runs in the third.
Gator Bytes
*Florida is 2-3 away from Gainesville this season, with wins over Stetson (5-2 on March 3) and UCF (7-3 on March 18) and three defeats to Arkansas (11-4, 8-4, 4-2) from March 13-15.
*Eight of the Gators' 14 wins this year have been of the come-from-behind variety. Last season's club had 10 comeback victories in its total of 34 triumphs.
*UF is 3-4 against in-state opponents this year, with wins over Stetson (March 3), Florida State (March 17) and UCF (March 18) and setbacks to Miami (three over Feb. 27-March 1) and Florida Atlantic (March 4).
*The Orange and Blue is 10-1 (.909) against unranked opponents and the club's four victories over Top-25 foes are the most in the conference.
*The Gators rank 12th overall in the SEC in batting average (.286), fourth in earned run average (3.58) and 12th in fielding percentage (.956). However, in league games only, the Gators are fourth in hitting (.286), fourth in pitching (4.06) and 12th in defense (.946).
*Barnes is the league leader with four triples and freshman Preston Tucker (Tampa, Fla.) is tied for second in sacrifice flies (three). Barnes has reached as the leadoff hitter in an inning 16 times in 29 opportunities for a .552 percentage.
*Since moving to the leadoff spot last Wednesday at UCF, den Dekker is 7-for-18 (.389). He enters the week on a six-game hitting streak in which he is batting .419 (10-for-24) with nine runs and four RBI.
*Adams (.375, 20 R, 12 RBI) is on his second six-game hitting streak of the year, one shy of his career-best of seven games set between Feb. 20-March 1. Adams has a .360 (9-for-25) clip during the current stretch.
*Barfield is first in the SEC in earned run average (1.17), fewest runs allowed (five) and earned runs allowed (three) and is 10th in opposing batting average (.227).
*Panteliodis has picked off a league-best five runners, including three against Duquesne on March 6.
*The Gators have played error-free baseball just four times in 21 games (Louisville, Feb. 21; Eastern Michigan, Feb. 24; Duquesne, March 8; Florida State, March 17).
*The Gators are 5-for-24 (.208) pinch hitting, with freshman Daniel Pigott (Ormond Beach , Fla.) 3-for-7 (.429).
*After entering the season with zero career saves, Bullock joins Chad Crosswhite (Mississippi State) and Alex Farotto (South Carolina) atop the league's leaderboard.
*Florida is a perfect 10-0 when leading after six innings and is 1-5 when trailing after six.
*The Gators starting pitchers have eight wins and the relievers have six.
-UF-
