No. 5 Baseball's Homestand Continues Wednesday Against UCF
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 | Baseball
After kicking off its 2010 season with a three-game sweep of USF, No. 5 Florida (3-0) begins a stretch of five games in five days by hosting Conference USA member UCF (3-0) at McKethan Stadium on Wednesday night. First pitch will be at 6:35 p.m. and the game will be carried live on GatorVision Online. The Knights downed Savannah State three times last weekend, 7-2, 14-4 and 8-6. The Gators will face Siena on Thursday before La Salle comes to town for three games starting Friday.
Wednesday's game will feature a pair of freshmen hurlers who will each be making his starting debut. Right-hander Hudson Randall (Atlanta, Ga.) (0-0, 0.00), who allowed one hit over 1.1 scoreless innings in the second meeting with USF, will be on the mound for the Gators. The Knights will counter with southpaw Brian Adkins (0-0, 0.00), who notched four strikeouts over three innings and gave up two hits in UCF's season-opening win over Savannah State.
The Gators opened their third season under Kevin O'Sullivan by defeating USF by scores of 6-2, 9-1 and 7-6 in 10 innings. It was the third year in a row that Florida started the campaign with a three-game sweep (Siena in 2008, No. 8 Louisville in 2009, USF in 2010). UF's trio of starting pitchers, redshirt sophomore RHP Tommy Toledo (Tampa, Fla.), freshman LHP Brian Johnson (Cocoa Beach, Fla.) and sophomore RHP Anthony DeSclafani (Freehold, N.J.) yielded zero earned runs in 13.1 innings and did not allow any extra-base hits. Senior center fielder Matt den Dekker (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.) notched three-consecutive multiple-hit outings and was 6-of-13 (.462) out of the leadoff spot against the Bulls. He is riding a 12-game hitting streak dating back to last season, one shy of his career high set twice, most recently between April 26 and May 21, 2008.
Freshman Mike Zunino (Cape Coral, Fla.) delivered a walk-off single down the right-field line in the 10th inning in Sunday's finale to lift the Orange and Blue to a thrilling 7-6 win. The Gators had rallied to force extra innings with three runs in the ninth, including the tying run on a two-out fielding error on a grounder by sophomore Preston Tucker (Tampa, Fla.).
After Gator sophomore Alex Panteliodis (Tampa, Fla.) (2-0) struck out junior Ryan Lockwood with runners on the corners to end the top of the 10th, sophomore Tyler Thompson (Tequesta, Fla.) led off the bottom of the frame with a walk from junior Kevin Quackenbush (0-1). Freshman Kamm Washington (Boynton Beach, Fla.) (3-for-3) collected his third hit of the afternoon with a one-out single for two runners on base before Quackenbush had freshman Nolan Fontana (Winter Garden, Fla.) (2-for-4) fly out to left field, setting the stage for Zunino's heroics. The rookie, who came in as a defensive replacement behind the plate in the seventh, had struck out twice before coming through with the game-winner on a 0-1 count to bring across Thompson.
While Sunday's victory was Florida's first to win when overcoming a deficit this season after trailing 6-3 in the ninth, 27 of the squad's 42 wins last year were of the come-from-behind variety. Zunino's decisive base-hit was UF's first walk-off since Teddy Foster delivered a two-run single to help the Gators edge Bethune-Cookman, 8-7, in the NCAA Gainesville Regional on May 29, 2009.
Johnson tossed 5.2 scoreless innings in his first collegiate action on Saturday to clinch the series against USF. The left-hander allowed three singles, registered three strikeouts and did not walk any batters. Of his 65 pitches, 51 were strikes. Johnson became the first Gator southpaw rookie to win on opening weekend since Panteliodis (6.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 K) accomplished the feat on Feb. 21, 2009, in a 10-4 conquest of eighth-ranked Louisville.
Making his first start on Saturday, Washington opened the home part of the fourth with a solo shot over the right-field fence for his initial hit and finished 1-for-4. He came off the bench in the third game against USF and stroked singles in the seventh (pinch-hit), ninth and 10th to cap his weekend with a .571 (4-for-7) performance.
Thompson, who started the first two games of the USF series in left field, tallied a career-high four RBI in the second win over the Bulls and was 3-for-10 (.300) on the weekend. He opened the scoring on Saturday with a single in the third to plate Tucker, then rifled a bases-clearing double as part of a four-run eighth that put the game out of reach. Thompson had one double and 10 RBI last season, when he batted .235 in 44 games.
Several Florida players could not have scripted a better start to the 2010 campaign. Junior Josh Adams (Jacksonville, Fla.) was a perfect 3-for-3 with four RBI, a pair of home runs and a double in the season opener, while freshman Austin Maddox (Jacksonville, Fla.) went 2-for-4 and blasted a two-run homer on the first swing of his Gator career. Making his return to the lineup after missing the '09 season, Toledo scattered three hits, registered four strikeouts and allowed an unearned run in 3.1 innings. Adams became the first UF player with multiple-homers in the season opener since Brad Wilkerson bashed three in a 19-4 beating of Mercer on Jan. 30, 1998.
In the Gators' last meeting with UCF, Tucker tied the SEC single-game record and established a school mark with 11 runs batted in to lift the Gators to a 16-3 win over UCF on April 8, 2009, at McKethan Stadium. The first baseman cranked grand slams in both the fifth (right field) and seventh (center field) innings, sandwiched around a three-run bomb in the sixth to left center. The Gator bullpen tossed 6.1 scoreless innings in which six relievers combined to permit three hits with two strikeouts and zero walks. DeSclafani notched his second win over the Knights by working 2.1 frames.
The Gators and Knights also met in front of a record crowd of 2,758 fans at Jay Bergman Field in Orlando on March 18 last season. DeSclafani notched his first collegiate victory with five innings of one-run ball as Florida defeated UCF, 7-3. He gave up six hits, tallied four strikeouts and permitted an unearned run. Adams and Clayton Pisani drove in two runs apiece, while den Dekker went 3-for-5 in his season debut out of the leadoff spot.
Gator Bytes
*Florida is looking to start 4-0 for the third-straight season. Head coach Kevin O'Sullivan's 2008 and 2009 Gator teams each began 5-0.
*The school record for consecutive wins to start a year is 11, set orginally between Feb. 4-19, 1989, and matched between Feb. 2 and March 1, 2002. The 1989 squad under Joe Arnold was 44-22 and was ousted in the NCAA East Regional held at McKethan Stadium by Miami (Fla.). Pat McMahon's first Gator team went 46-19 and hosted the NCAA Gainesville Regional, where it dropped a 8-7 heartbreaker to UM to end its season.
*Since 1994, UF and UCF have split the last eight meetings in Gainesville.
*Senior Matt den Dekker is 16-for-49 (.327) with 10 RBI and nine runs during his 12-game hitting streak.
*The Gators out-scored USF by a 22-9 margin last weekend, including a 7-0 disparity in the first inning.
*Florida went 2-for-3 (.667) pinch hitting on opening weekend, as freshman Kamm Washington was 1-for-1 and sophomore Jerico Weitzel was 1-for-2.
*UF was successful on one of its three stolen-base attempts versus the Bulls, as sophomore Daniel Pigott swiped second base on Saturday.
*Eleven of the Gators' 20 RBI this year have come with two outs, led by three from sophomore Tyler Thompson and two apiece by senior Matt den Dekker and sophomore Daniel Pigott.
*Florida is batting just .182 (2-for-11) with the bases loaded and .258 (8-for-31) with runners in scoring position.
*The Gator starting pitchers have limited foes to a .200 batting average, with 11 strikeouts and two walks.
*Opposing left-handed hitters are 11-for-43 (.256), while right-handed batters are 17-for-65 (.262).
*Coach O'Sullivan used 12 different pitchers over the weekend, including four freshmen (Michael Heller, Brian Johnson, Hudson Randall and Steven Rodriguez).
*The Gators have a 13-2 (.867) record at home under O'Sullivan during the month of February.
--UF--
