No. 6 Florida Begins Homestand By Hosting Bethune-Cookman Tuesday Night
Tuesday, April 21, 2015 | Baseball
Florida vs. Bethune-Cookman Game Notes
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Fresh off of a weekend sweep of Mississippi State, No. 6 Florida (31-10/12-6 SEC) starts a four-game stretch at McKethan Stadium by facing Bethune-Cookman (15-29/13-8 MEAC) on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at McKethan Stadium. The Gators will then entertain SEC Eastern Division foe Kentucky (22-16/8-9 SEC) in a three-game series that begins Friday night.
The game can be heard through GatorZone.com and on the Gator IMG Sports Network with Jeff Cardozo and Mick Hubert. Live stats for each game will be available on GatorZone.com and fans can also follow updates of each game on @GatorZoneBB, the official Twitter account of the Gator baseball team.
QUICK HITS ABOUT THE GATORS
- Florida forged a three-way tie on top of the SEC East standings with Missouri and Vanderbilt by notching its first sweep of Mississippi State in Starkville since 2002. The Gators, Tigers and Commodores are all 12-6 (.667) with four league series remaining, a half-game behind West co-leaders LSU and Texas A&M (12-5).
- UF has just two mid-week games remaining this season, Tuesday night against Bethune-Cookman and on Tuesday, May 5, versus USF.
- The Gators will return to the friendly confines of McKethan Stadium for their next four games, where they are 23-3 (.885) this year.
- In 26 games on its home turf in '15, Florida has a .336 average, compared to .224 for its opponents. Junior Harrison Bader is a team-best .429 with 35 RBI and 11 homers, senior Josh Tobias is at .392 with 24 runs and 12 RBI, while freshman JJ Schwarz has a .376 clip with 33 RBI and 11 homers.
- The Orange and Blue is hitting .307 as team, have compiled a team earned run average of 3.32 and lead the nation with a .985 fielding percentage.
- Florida has played error-free baseball in 22 of its 41 games and is 19-3 (.864) in those games.
- The Gators are 29-1 (.967) when out-hitting their opponent, 24-2 (.923) when scoring first, 21-5 (.808) when hitting a homer and 17-1 (.944) when scoring in the first inning.
- Tobias leads UF in both overall (.371) and SEC (.370) batting average, is tied for second in the league in triples (5) and has not committed any errors at third base.
- Bader (.336) has 43 RBI, 34 runs, 12 doubles and 11 homers, while junior shortstop Richie Martin (.323) has 38 runs, 26 RBI, 22 walks and is 14-for-17 on the basepaths.
- Freshman second baseman Dalton Guthrie (.322) has scored a team-high 39 runs, while Schwarz(.303) paces the squad with an SEC-best 47 RBI and is second in the conference with 13 homers.
- Sophomore center fielder Buddy Reed is batting .311 overall with 30 RBI and 14 stolen bases and is at .343 in league action.
- After missing the first 30 games of the season with a foot injury, sophomore first baseman Peter Alonso is 15-for-46 (.326) in 11 games and was 9-for-17 (.529) in Florida's four games last week. He powered the Gator offense in Starkville by going 7-for-12 (.583) with six RBI and a slugging percentage of 1.167
- On the mound, senior left-hander Bobby Poyner is 2-1 with a team-low 1.99 ERA in 14 appearances and has collected three saves, while sophomore righty Logan Shore (6-2, 2.29) fired his second complete game of the season in the opener with MSU
- According to the most recent SEC statistics, Florida ranks No. 1 in fielding percentage (.985), No. 3 in team batting average (.307) and No. 5 in team ERA (3.32).
- Schwarz is first in the league in RBI (47), second in home runs (13) and fourth in slugging percentage (.651), Bader is second in slugging (.679), second in RBI (43) and third in home runs (11), while Tobias is sixth in batting average (.371) and ninth in slugging percentage (.613).
SERIES NUGGETS
Florida holds a 28-0 advantage in the all-time series, with 27 of the wins coming in Gainesville. Head coach Kevin O'Sullivan is 8-0 against the Wildcats.
LAST MEETING BETWEEN THE GATORS & WILDCATS
Right-hander Jonathon Crawford made his NCAA Tournament debut one to remember on June 1, 2012, as he twirled the first no-hitter by a Florida pitcher in 21 years to lead the top-seeded Gators to a 4-0 victory over fourth-seeded Bethune-Cookman at McKethan Stadium.
Casey Turgeon (3-for-4) drove in all four runs for the Orange and Blue with an RBI single in the second inning and a three-run homer in the fifth.
After pitching just 3.2 innings as a freshman in 2011, Crawford drew the starting assignment in Florida's NCAA Tournament opener and became the first Gator hurler to register a complete-game no-hitter since John Burke accomplished the feat in a 2-0 shutout of Furman on May 23, 1991, that was the Gators' opener in the NCAA East Regional held at McKethan Stadium. Florida's last combined no-hitter occurred on March 19, 1993, when the duo of Doug Brennan (7.0) and Chris Nelson (2.0) defeated Pace, 16-0.
TICKETS
Single-game tickets, season tickets and the Complete Game Mini-Plans can be purchased online through GatorZone or by calling the Gator Ticket Office at 1-800-34-GATOR from 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Friday. For all of the latest information on Florida baseball, log on to GatorZone or follow the team's Twitter account @GatorZoneBB.
