Photo Gallery (Courtney Culbreath and Allison Curry) | Box Score

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The first sign Florida's season opener on Friday night wasn't going to be a stroll through the park came off the bat of William & Mary's Brandon Raquet. His two-out, solo homer off Gators starter Alex Faedo in the second inning gave the Tribe an early lead.

The Gators played catch-up until finally passing the Tribe with a two-run rally in the seventh, the go-ahead score coming on a wild pitch that lifted Florida to a 5-4 victory in front of an announced crowd of 5,402 at McKethan Stadium.

"We got through it,'' Gators head coach Kevin O'Sullivan said.

That was as good a description as any of the Gators' fourth consecutive win in a season opener and ninth in 10 seasons under O'Sullivan.



In front of the third-largest crowd for a season opener in program history, much of the preseason chatter about the Gators focused on Faedo, a junior right-hander who is considered among the top pitchers in the country and a potential first-round pick in the draft.

Coming off a 13-3 season, Faedo's shortest regular-season outing last season was five innings (twice). Working on a pitch count, Faedo was unable to make it out of the fifth on Friday night as he allowed four hits, four runs, three walks and struck out seven in 4 2/3 innings. The Tribe made Faedo work, forcing him to throw 87 pitches to record 14 outs.

Florida trailed 4-1 after Faedo's final inning, leaving the Gators with some work to do.

"Alex will be much, much better,'' O'Sullivan said. "It's the first night. For whatever reason everybody's over anxious, maybe at the plate, maybe on the mound. It's hard to get into a rhythm. It's just one of those things."

The Gators closed the gap to 4-3 in bottom of the fifth on a two-out, two-run single by JJ Schwarz.

Reliever Nick Horvath pitched a scoreless sixth and then turned it over to Michael Byrne, who was the beneficiary of the Gators' comeback to pick up his first career win (3 IP, 1 H, 4 SO).

"I was feeling it right out of the bullpen,'' Byrne said. "I remember my first loss last year and that was not a good one in the SEC Championship. So, it's nice to get the first W."
 
Down 4-3 to start the seventh, the Gators delivered their home fans what they wanted: a lead.

Florida immediately threatened when Deacon Liput led off with a walk and moved to third on a throwing error by Tribe third baseman Zach Pearson that allowed Jonathan India to reach second on what was a routine grounder. Next, Schwarz tapped a bouncer back to the mound that Tribe reliever Nick Raquet failed to field cleanly.

Liput scored on the play and India advanced to third as Raquet had no choice after his bobble but to throw to first to retire Schwarz.

Finally, with Mike Rivera at the plate, India scored the winning run on Raquet's wild pitch. The play was close but India took off as soon as he saw the ball bounce away from catcher Hunter Smith.

"It was a tie game so I had to do something for the team,'' India said. "I didn't have a great night at the plate, so I decided to sacrifice myself and take a chance and it worked out. I thought I was safe even if he didn't drop the ball."

Shortstop Dalton Guthrie and center fielder Blake Reese, a high school shortstop making his first career start at Florida, led the Gators with two hits apiece. Schwarz finished 1-for-3 with three RBIs in what was mostly an excitement-free night for UF until India raced home for what proved to be the winning run.

"That was a big one,'' Schwarz said. "Opening weekend, there's a lot of nerves, a lot of fans here. The energy is really high. It's pretty big for us to come back and get that one."

As the Gators trailed most of the game, O'Sullivan said he never saw any panic and didn't expect to.

He waited for something to happen.

"I thought India's baserunning was very aggressive,'' O'Sullivan said. "If [the catcher] held onto the ball the play could have gone either way, but if you're going to make mistakes, I'd rather be on the aggressive side. Even if he had gotten thrown out there I would have had no issue with it.

"Stay aggressive. That's how you get through the early part of the year. "

It's exactly how the Gators got through their season opener.