WHAT HAPPENED: Florida took the series opener from South Carolina 9-5 on Thursday night in Gainesville.
 
The Gators jumped out to an early lead with six runs in the third inning. Brady McConnell got things started with an opposite field home run to make it 3-0.
 
Starting with McConnell's homer, Florida strung together five straight hits capped by Cory Acton's RBI single. Two batters later, Jud Fabian singled to make it 6-0.
 
South Carolina got on the board with a sac fly in the fifth, but the Gators answered with a RBI double from Acton to make it 7-1.
 
In the seventh, the Gamecocks scored back-to-back runs on wild pitches to make it 7-3.
 
Florida got some needed insurance runs in the eighth inning. Calilao led off with his third hit of the night and Cory Acton doubled for the second time. A wild pitch and sac fly brought in both runners to make it 9-3.
 
South Carolina added two runs in the ninth before Ben Specht entered and finished off the game.
 
Overall, the pitching was not up to par on Thursday night. The Gators staff combined for eight walks, two hit batters and four wild pitches. Starter Tommy Mace only allowed three hits, but gave up four walks and two runs.
 
The bullpen walked four batters and allowed three runs in three innings. Specht finished the game retiring all three batters he faced.
 
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Cory Acton – The freshmen went 3-for-4 on Thursday with two doubles and two RBI. It's the first three-hit game of his career and the second time in the past three games he doubled twice.
 
STANDOUT STAT: 10 – Florida's pitchers allowed 10 free baserunners on Thursday night, courtesy of eight walks and two hit batters. It's the second-most allowed on the season. On opening night, UF allowed 11 free passes (nine walks, two hit batters).

FROM THE COACH: Head Coach Kevin O'Sullivan – On tonight's performance: "I don't know what to say to be honest with you. You guys have been around here long enough, 11 years, we haven't walked this many. Very rarely have we walked three hitters per nine, so we're way above that. I looked at our ERA over the last 11 years on average in the conference games alone – the most important games – I think we have a combined 3.85 team ERA in conference games. We're just not throwing the ball across the plate and it's been kind of the same thing all year long. We're falling behind leadoff hitters of innings way too much. Tonight I think we walked the leadoff man three times and hit the leadoff man another time. So they got on base four times in nine at bats to start innings. And we're not doing a good job with the bottom half of the order, I think we walked them five times and hit them as well. Basically six free passes for guys in the bottom third of the lineup.
 
"I'm excited we won, obviously, it's a lot better than the other option. But at the same token, I don't want them to be fooled and thinking that we're playing at our best because we're not. It's kind of fine line, you want to be positive when you win but you don't want to fool yourselves either. We're going to keep coaching them up and keep doing what we've always done, but at some point we're going to have to change some things because it's going to come back to haunt us. The reason we had the weekend like we had last week at Ole Miss were the same reasons. We'll just keep plugging away."
 
UP NEXT: Florida continues its series against South Carolina Friday during #WeChompWeekend. First pitch is slated for 6:30 p.m. The game will stream live on SEC Network+ and fans can listen to Jeff Cardozo and Eric Castaldo on the Gators Sports Network.
 
Saturday's series finale is at 3:30 p.m.