WHAT HAPPENED: Florida held off Yale for a 6-5 win in the series opener on Friday at McKethan Stadium in Gainesville.
 
The Gators built a 4-1 lead through the first four innings but Yale battled and cut the deficit to one in the seventh. A solo home run by Brady McConnell in the bottom of the seventh extended the lead just enough, as the Bulldogs scored one in the ninth but failed to tie the game.
 
Florida took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on a RBI single from Nelson Maldonado. Yale tied it in the second with some small ball but the Gators answered with a RBI single from Jacob Young for a 2-1 lead.
 
In the third inning, Maldonado extended the lead with his first home run of the season, a two-run shot to make it 4-1.
 
Tommy Mace cruised through the next few innings, keeping the Bulldogs at bay until the fifth. Simon Whiteman led off with a double and scored on a grounder to cut the lead to two.
 
Once again, the Gators answered with a run of their own in the sixth inning. Jud Fabian doubled and moved to third on a sac bunt. Brady Smith executed a squeeze bunt with two strikes and Fabian sprinted home to make it 5-2.
 
Yale chased Mace from the game in the seventh inning after Griffin Dey's two-run double cut the lead to one. Hunter Ruth relieved Mace and escaped the inning without any further damage.
 
McConnell extended his hitting streak to 12 games with a solo home run to left center for a 6-4 lead.
 
Ruth retired all five batters he faced and gave way to Nolan Crisp for the ninth inning. Whiteman led off with a single, his fourth hit of the night, and moved to second after an errant pickoff attempt by Crisp.
 
A RBI single from Tim DeGraw cut the deficit to one, but Crisp retired the next two batters to close it out and record his seventh save of the season.
 
STANDOUT STAT: 200 (+1) – Senior Nelson Maldonado singled in his first at bat of the night, the 200th hit of his career. He later homered and finished 2-for-4 with three RBI.
 
FROM THE COACH: Head Coach Kevin O'Sullivan – On tonight's game: "We played a really good team. Their shortstop [Simon Whiteman] is one heck of a player. He can run, he can handle the bat…their whole team played really good infield defense tonight. We faced a really good pitcher [Scott Politz]; he pitched in the Cape last summer with a couple of our guys and he went down to New Orleans last week and spun a one-hitter complete game. That's hard to do in college baseball.
 
"Excited about the win, but there's a bunch of things, we talked about it with the team, we made a bunch of mistakes tonight that we're going to have to start eliminating moving forward."
 
On Nelson Maldonado: "We won by one run, every run counts. Nelly's been a really good hitter for us for three-plus years now. I'm excited for him, I've got to go congratulate him on his 200th hit. Like I said, all the at bats matter and you never know which one is going to come back to help you, or not help you, when the final out is made."
 
UP NEXT: Florida's homestand continues Saturday at 4 p.m. against Yale. Sunday's finale is at 1 p.m. The games will broadcast live on the SEC Network+ and the Gator Sports Network.