GAINESVILLE, Fla.—Florida clinched its opening weekend series with an 8-1 win on Saturday over William and Mary behind three RBI from Jonathan India and a strong combined effort on the mound.
 
The Gators and Tribe will wrap up the series on Sunday at 1 p.m. at McKethan Stadium. Sophomore Jackson Kowar will make his first start of the season for Florida against William and Mary senior Daniel Powers.
 
India connected on the Gators first home run of the season, a two-run shot in the eighth, and finished 3-for-5 on the day. JJ Schwarz was 3-for-3 with a RBI and Ryan Larson had a pair of RBI in the victory.
 
The Gators bullpen, one of the team's question marks to open the season, has pitched 8.1 scoreless innings to start the year. Freshman Austin Langworthy relieved Singer in the sixth inning and pitched 2.2 scoreless innings in his collegiate debut. Frank Rubio entered in the eighth to get one out and freshman Andrew Baker had a 1-2-3 ninth inning to finish the game.
 
Florida starter Brady Singer picked up his first win of the season after five solid innings with one run allowed while tallying six strikeouts on the afternoon.
 
A leadoff single from Ryder Miconi in the second inning got the Tribe rolling. He scored on a groundout to give William and Mary a 1-0 lead.
 
In the bottom half of the inning, Schwarz led off with a single and Nelson Maldonado drew a one-out walk. Both runners advanced on a wild pitch and scored on a single from Ryan Larson to give the Gators a 2-1 lead.
 
In the third inning, Dalton Guthrie and Deacon Liput led off with back-to-back singles. A RBI single from India gave Florida a 3-1 lead. A sac fly from Schwarz and groundout from Mike Rivera pushed the lead to 5-1.
 
In the seventh inning, freshman Keenan Bell entered the game as a pinch hitter and picked up his first career hit and RBI with a single to left to score Schwarz from second.
 
India's home run capped the scoring in the eighth.
 
 
POST GAME QUOTES
Head Coach Kevin O'Sullivan
"We spent about 20 minutes after pregame meal about slowing the game down, controlling your heart rate, taking a deep breath. The bottom line is that there's such a long time between the end of the season last year and the first game. There's so much anticipation. They care so much, they want to be successful and do well. Unfortunately when you care too much you put too much pressure on yourself and you can't perform the way you want to. I thought that they responded very well tonight.
 
"I thought that Brady was good, but you're going to see a really, really good Brady Singer moving forward. Like Alex last night, he'll be much better moving forward. It's always hard that first start, but [Singer] was dominant in the first inning. Langworthy came in, he's just a baseball player, he just throws strikes. It's probably a nice combination bringing him in behind Singer. Rubio got the ground ball [in the eighth] and then Baker, you saw him. I've been high on him since day one. It's good to get these guys out there.
 
"Keenan Bell got his first hit, hit a ball firm the other way. Offensively I thought we were really good. Deacon had a good night at the plate. JJ's been seeing the ball really well. India had a really nice night. The only thing I mentioned to them that I was most pleased with, other than the approach tonight mentally, was defensively. We've been playing really good defensively. India made a great play with his backhand, Ryan made a nice play toward the line in left field, Liput made two really, really nice plays. Those guys in the middle, him and Dalton, they're pretty darn good. Defensively, we've made one error over the first 18 innings of the year, that's really good to see. I knew we would have a really good defensive club. It's one thing to think we're going to have one, and another to actually see it."