No. 2 UF Baseball & No. 4 South Carolina Meet In SEC Tourney Elimination Game Friday Night
Friday, May 25, 2012 | Baseball
Second-ranked Florida (41-17) and fourth-ranked South Carolina (40-16) and will meet on Friday night at Regions Park with a semifinal berth in the 2012 SEC Tournament at stake. The game will start 30 minutes following the completion of the win-or-go-home contest between No. 5t LSU (43-15) and No. 25 Mississippi State (36-22) that begins at 4 p.m. ET. The game will be aired on CSS, Cox Communications Channel 259 in the Gainesville/Ocala area and can be heard on Country 103.7 The Gator with Jeff Cardozo and Mick Hubert.
After an opening-round loss to Vanderbilt on Wednesday, 3-2, the Gamecocks stayed alive with a 5-3 victory over Auburn on Thursday. The Gators downed the Tigers on Tuesday, 6-1, then fell to the Commodores on Thursday night, 2-1.
Junior Brian Johnson (Cocoa Beach, Fla.) will be making his team-leading 15th start of the season and is 6-4 with a 3.88 earned run average in 72 innings. He will opposed by Gamecock junior right-hander Colby Holmes (6-0, 2.91). Johnson has 59 strikeouts and 15 walks and is coming off a strong seven-inning stint at Auburn last Friday night in which he permitted just two hits and an unearned run and tallied seven strikeouts to clinch the series victory for the Gators. The southpaw earned the decision in game two at South Carolina on March 23 by allowing two runs and five hits over six innings in UF's 8-2 win.
Florida and South Carolina will be meeting for the ninth time in the past two seasons. The clubs battled five times last year, with the Gamecocks emerging victorious on four occasions, including twice in Omaha to win their second-straight NCAA title. Kevin O'Sullivan's club claimed two of the three regular-season encounters in Columbia in the second league series in late March.
During the regular season, No. 1 Florida dropped the first game at No. 6 South Carolina on March 22, 9-3, to see its school-record winning streak end at 18 games before rallying to take the series over the Gamecocks with an 8-2 victory on Friday and a 5-4 triumph on Saturday. All three games at Carolina Stadium between the Eastern Division rivals were sellouts of 8,242 fans and the total attendance of 24,726 spectators matched the highest in the facility's existence. USC had not dropped a series at home since the Gators had taken two of three games at the end of the 2010 regular season. Florida captured the series after losing the opener, marking the first time that had happened since last season at Mississippi State, when the Gators fell in game one (7-5) and claimed the next two outings (18-0, 3-1).
Junior Nolan Fontana (Winter Garden, Fla.) delivered a tie-breaking, two-out, two-run triple in the ninth to lift UF to a 5-4 victory in the finale. Fontana (2-for-5) had entered the contest 1-for-33 in his career against the Gamecocks and came through with the decisive hit. With the game tied at two runs apiece entering the ninth, junior Vickash Ramjit (Miami, Fla.) drew a two-out walk from USC junior Matt Price and junior Cody Dent (Boynton Beach, Fla.) was hit in the back by a 3-2 pitch. Fontana picked an opportune time for his first triple of the season, ripping a 1-2 pitch from Price to the gap in right center to give the Gators a 5-3 advantage. The Gamecocks pulled within 5-4 on a solo homer by junior LB Dantzler before junior Austin Maddox (Jacksonville, Fla.) closed it out.
Junior catcher Mike Zunino (Cape Coral, Fla.) belted a three-run homer in the first inning of game two against the Gamecocks and added a solo shot in the rubber game, while senior right fielder Preston Tucker (Tampa, Fla.) was 4-for-11 (.364) at USC. A five-run first inning and a season-high four homers by the Gators paved the way to an 8-2 victory that evened the series on Friday night. Zunino (1-for-4, three RBI) and Johnson (2-for-5, two RBI) delivered back-to-back homers in the first inning and Ramjit (3-for-4) connected on solo shots in both the sixth and ninth frames for the first multiple-dinger outing of his career. Johnson (4-0) allowed two runs and five hits over six innings to earn the win, while UF totaled 11 hits and also drew a season-high 10 walks. The Gators sent 10 batters to the plate in the first inning and plated five runs in a frame for the fifth time in 2012. Sophomore LHP Daniel Gibson (Lutz, Fla.) threw 2.2 scoreless innings to end the game.
In the series opener, South Carolina snapped a 2-2 tie with a four-run seventh inning and added three runs in the eighth to defeat UF, 9-3, on Thursday night. Junior Hudson Randall (Atlanta, Ga.) set a career high with 11 strikeouts and yielded seven hits and two runs over 5.2 innings but was not involved in the decision. He was the first UF pitcher to reach double-digit strikeouts since Alex Panteliodis had 12 against Miami (Fla.) in the 2010 NCAA Gainesville Super Regional.
Junior left-hander Sam Selman tossed six shutout frames and senior Riley Reynolds delivered a two-out triple in the fourth inning as Vanderbilt (32-25) extended its winning streak to eight games with a 2-1 victory UF on Thursday night at the 2012 SEC Tournament to advance to Saturday's semifinal round. The triumph ended a seven-game slide in the series by the Commodores.
Selman (9-3) held UF to two hits over six innings and registered seven strikeouts before being relieved by freshman Tyler Beede (0.2 IP, 1 H, 1 R), who surrendered a sacrifice fly to Tucker that brought Florida within 2-1 in the seventh inning. Freshman Jared Miller pitched the final 2.1 innings, permitting just a two-out single into right center field by senior Daniel Pigott (Ormond Beach, Fla.) in the ninth, to collect his first career save and nail down the win. Randall (7-2) saw his four-game winning streak snapped with the setback. The teams combined for nine hits (5-4 VU) and stranded a total of 18 runners on base (11-7 UF).
Gator Bytes
*Head coach Kevin O'Sullivan is 9-9 (.500) against South Carolina, 4-2 (.667) in Gainesville, 5-4 (.556) in Columbia, 0-1 (.000) at the SEC Tournament and 0-2 (.000) at the NCAA Tournament.
*Friday will mark the first SEC Tournament meeting between the Gators and Gamecocks since USC posted an 11-3 triumph to oust UF from the 2008 event in O'Sullivan's first year at the helm. The Gators are seeking to end a three-game losing streak to Carolina in Hoover since a 12-4 win on May 20, 2000.
*Friday's starter, junior LHP Brian Johnson, is 1-2 with a 6.08 ERA in four appearances and three career starts versus the Gamecocks. In 13.1 innings against USC, he has allowed 18 hits and 10 runs (nine earned), with 12 strikeouts and four walks.
*Florida is 9-5 (.643) in Johnson's 14 starts this year and is averaging 6.3 runs when he takes the hill. The lefty has turned in seven quality starts this season, the second-highest total on the team behind junior Hudson Randall (9).
*UF is 11-4 (.733) versus top-10 foes this season and is 4-1 (.800) against top-five squads.
*Senior Preston Tucker has a .306 (15-for-49) average in 14 career games against the Gamecocks, with 13 walks, seven RBI runs and four runs. He has a pair of doubles and one triple but has not gone deep against USC.
*Senior righty Greg Larson's next appearance will tie him for second on the school's all-time list with Darren O'Day at 117.
*Last season's SEC Tournament Most Valuable Player, senior Daniel Pigott, opened this year's event by going 2-for-3 against Auburn and scored twice and went 1-for-5 in the matchup with Vanderbilt. His .375 (3-for-8) batting average is tied for top spot with freshman Justin Shafer.
*Florida is batting .222 (14-for-63) in the two games in Hoover and its pitching staff has compiled a 1.06 ERA and limited the Tigers and Commodores to a .140 (8-for-57) batting average.
*The Gators have used eight different relievers over the past two games and have not allowed any runs over 5.2 innings.
*The 2-1 setback to Vanderbilt dropped Florida to 6-7 (.462) in one-run games and the team is now 1-6 (.143) when scoring between 0-2 runs this year.
*The Gators' four hits against Vanderbilt halted a stretch of four-straight double-digit hit totals but they drew five walks (season-high three by junior Mike Zunino) and were hit twice by pitches.
*With 12 saves in 12 opportunities, junior Austin Maddox needs more save to tie the school's single-season mark held by Danny Wheeler (1994) and Josh Fogg (1998). Maddox's last save came on April 27 against Arkansas.
*The Gators are an even 3-3 (.500) on their journey through the state of Alabama: 12-7 loss at Samford on May 15, 2-1 series triumph at Auburn from May 17-19 and 1-1 at the SEC Tournament.
*Freshman Casey Turgeon raised his hitting streak to a team-high four games with a fourth-inning double against Vanderbilt and his diving stop of a grounder hit by Anthony Gomez was the No. 4 play on ESPN's SportsCenter.
*Johnson and Maddox were among the 10 players on the newest Watch List for the 2012 John Olerud Two-Way Player of the Year Award announced by The College Baseball Hall of Fame late Wednesday night. The top 10 features six sophomores, a freshman, two juniors and a senior.
*2012 College Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Brad Wilkerson (1996-98) is on hand this weekend as part of the inaugural SEC Baseball Legends Program.
