| Photo Gallery by Tim Casey

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The box score from Florida's 8-4 victory over Columbia on Sunday has some numbers that might not blow away the closest observers of the No. 2-ranked Gators.

The Gators scored more runs than they had hits (seven). They left 12 runners on base, and the game's only home run was off the bat of Columbia's AJ DiFillipo, whose two-run homer in the seventh trimmed Florida's lead to 4-3.

A closer look tells the complete story.

The Gators didn't need to swing the bats great. They just needed to have a good eye.

Florida (10-2) stayed patient at the plate despite some early missed opportunities against Lions starter Ty Wiest and it eventually paid off with a three-game sweep Sunday afternoon at McKethan Stadium.

"We got good contributions from a lot of different people,'' Florida head coach Kevin O'Sullivan said. "All in all, I think it was a very good day offensively. The first four or five innings were not easy the way the wind was blowing."

Once the gusty conditions settled down in the later innings, Columbia pitchers seemed to get blown off course after Wiest (4 IP, 1 H, 4 BB, 2 SO) departed with a 1-0 lead.

The Lions walked 12 Gators on the afternoon, threw three wild pitches and hit two batters as Florida overcame an early deficit by scoring four runs in both the sixth and seventh innings. It was the most walks for UF hitters in a game since Feb. 27, 2008 against Eastern Michigan when the Gators also received a dozen free passes to first.

The trouble really started for Columbia when reliever Harrisen Egly walked JJ Schwarz to lead off the sixth. Schwarz moved to third on Keenan Bell's single and scored UF's first run on Mike Rivera's RBI groundout to short.
 
The next batter, Gators right fielder Nelson Maldonado, doubled home Bell to put UF in front 2-1. Maldonado later scored on an Egly wild pitch. By the time the inning was over, the Gators had scored four runs on two hits and Egly had walked five, including a bases-loaded walk to Jonathan India.

Bell scored the go-ahead run on Maldonado's double in the sixth and doubled to lead off the seventh, igniting another four-run rally. He was lifted for a pinch-runner and watched Columbia reliever Will West walk three, hit one, walk in a run and allow a run to score on a wild pitch.

Not your everyday four-run inning.

"It can get kind of boring, but however we're scoring runs, however we're moving bases, it's good,'' Bell said.

"That doesn't happen very often,'' O'Sullivan said of the 12 bases on balls and 26 over the weekend by Lions pitchers. In Sunday's game, only 90 of Columbia's 176 pitches (51.1 percent) were strikes. The last time the Gators were walked 26 or more times in a three-game series was 11 years ago in a season-opening series against Cincinnati (27 walks).

While the Gators entered the three-game series with nine games off the calendar, the weekend series served as Columbia's season opener.

Sophomore starter Jackson Kowar wasn't the best he's been in his two seasons at UF, but he was good enough to earn his third consecutive victory. The victory gave Florida a sweep in its first three home series of the season for the first time since 2011.



Kowar allowed five hits, three runs over seven innings. He struck out four and walked two.

His most difficult task may have been some of the long rests in the dugouts while Columbia pitchers struggled with their control. Jackson retired the first nine batters he faced but wasn't quite as sharp his second time through the lineup.

"I talked to him when he came out,'' O'Sullivan said. "It's almost like it a carbon copy. He's dominant the first three innings or so, then the second time through he kind of nit-picks a little bit. I don't know if he tries to overthink it or what. It's not that he is losing his aggressiveness, I think he is just trying to do too much second time through."

Still, Kowar got the job done Sunday in front of an announced crowd of 3,675.

He was able to find the strike zone. That gave the Gators a huge edge.