Florida Gators

WHAT HAPPENED: The Gators struggled to get much of anything going in the 13-1 loss to LSU Friday night, which evened the series in Baton Rouge.
 
After freshman starting pitcher Christian Scott escaped jams in the second and third innings with just one run allowed, freshman third baseman Cory Acton hit a solo shot with two outs and two strikes against him, making it a 2-1 game in the fourth.
 
LSU hung a three spot in the bottom half of the fourth, chasing Scott in the progress. Sophomore catcher Brady Smith smacked a leadoff single – his fifth hit of the series – to open the fifth inning, and freshman second baseman Jacob Young reached on a one-out error, giving Florida a chance to trim the 5-1 deficit.
 
Two strikeouts later, LSU starting pitcher Cole Henry extinguished the Gators' scoring chance. And the Tigers plated five runs in the bottom half of the frame to make it 10-1.
 
The Gators used four different pitchers, and they finished with just seven hits – one night after amassing 20 hits and 16 runs against the Tigers.
 
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Freshman Cory Acton came to Baton Rouge without a home run. He smashed one Thursday night, and followed that up with a solo homer tonight. Acton's blast produced Florida's only run of the night, and it also turned out to be his only hit of the night.
 

Cory Acton Home Runs pre-LSU: 0

Cory Acton Home Runs vs. LSU: 2⃣

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— Florida Gators Baseball (@GatorsBB) April 20, 2019

FROM THE COACH: Head Coach Kevin O'Sullivan on tonight's game… "The biggest thing with pitching against LSU is you have to control the leadoff hitter innings, because it's very much momentum-type offense. First three innings, the leadoff man got on, and they ended up scoring a couple runs. Cory (Acton) had a big at bat there, got us within a run with his second home run of the year.
 
"We had 7-8-9 in the fourth inning, we get two outs, nobody on, and real quick we get an 0-2 count, and we don't locate a slider off the plate … we get through that inning without giving up a run, we got a little bit of momentum, and who knows what happens. Unfortunately, we didn't. And they ended up putting three runs on the board. We were one strike away from getting out of the inning with no damage.
 
"The other part was we ran into a really good pitcher tonight. (Cole Henry) threw the ball really well. We weren't quite as aggressive as we probably needed to be; we took a bunch of fastball strikes early. But credit their starter. He was really, really good."

UP NEXT: Florida looks to take the series Saturday afternoon on ESPN2. First pitch is set for 3 p.m. ET.