* Memorable team moments from 2019-20
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — When it all came to a sudden, inglorious stop, University of Florida sports, across the board, had or were in the process of doing some remarkable things.
Men's basketball was headed for a fourth straight NCAA Tournament. Gymnastics was unbeaten, ranked second in the nation and headed for the Southeastern Conference meet. Baseball was No. 1 and had erupted to the best start in program history. Softball was ranked seventh, had six straight wins, including a sweep of Auburn to start SEC play, and was coming off a defeat of No. 10 Florida State. Golf swept the men's and women's titles of its own Gator Invitational. Men's swimming had won its eighth straight league title and was riding that moment to the NCAA championships. Mike "Mouse" Holloway and his track team were … well … doing their usual deal.
If games, meets and matches go on after March 12, who knows how many stunning performances the Gators may have put on display for their orange-and-blue faithful; a lot over three months, no doubt.
But what we had up until the fateful Covid-19 shutdown was what we could choose from as far as best individual performances of the abbreviated 2019-20 athletic calendar.
And, as always, there were some sensational ones.
1) A star is born
He had not started a football game since his freshman year on the junior varsity squad at Manvel (Texas) High.
Kyle Trask didn't start the Gators' Sept. 4 game at Kentucky, either, but circumstances — namely a gruesome second-half ankle injury to
Feleipe Franks — necessitated Trask, the fourth-year junior and hard-luck backup quarterback, to take the field against the Wildcats in a less-than-favorable situation.
UF trailed by 11 points when Trask, on the road, entered the game on his first possession of the fourth quarter. The 6-foot-5, 239-pounder proceeded to complete nine of 13 throws for 126 yards and led touchdown drives of 62, 66 and 80 yards, as the Gators scored the last 19 points of the game and left sold-out Kroger Field with a 29-21 victory that set the tone for the rest of the season.
Florida had shuffled through 12 starting quarterbacks (14 total) since saying goodbye to
Tim Tebow after the 2009 season. Just like that, the Gators had a bona fide threat under center — named third-team All-Southeastern Conference, behind Heisman Trophy winner
Joe Burrow (LSU) and fifth overall NFL draft pick
Tua Tagovailoa (Alabama), as it turned out — as Trask went on to complete 67 percent of his passes for 2,841 yards, 25 touchdowns and seven interceptions, helping lead his team to an 11-2 record and Orange Bowl victory.
When (or if) the 2020 season comes around, UF will be in an unquestioned position of strength at a position that was one of unknown and underachievement over the previous decade.
2) No one was even close
We'll start with a little context.
Earlier in the decade, when Florida was crushing the NCAA gymnastics landscape on the way to three consecutive national titles, names such as
Bridget Sloan,
Kytra Hunter and
Alex McMurtry were synonymous with titles and 10s. All three won the Honda Award as the nation's top gymnast.
None were as dominant as
Trinity Thomas during her 2020 sophomore season.
Thomas, out of York, Pa., was a first-team All-American in all-around, uneven bars, balance and floor exercise, as well as a second-teamer on vault. She was also the SEC Gymnast of the Year. Those accolades don't do her domination justice.
This might.
During the regular season, Thomas was named SEC Gymnast of the Week eight of nine times, including the last seven before the shutdown. She led the Gators with 28 event wins, posted 10s in three different events and emerged as a finalist for the year's Honda Award.
Sloan, Hunter and McMurtry were a trinity of sorts, in their own right. This Trinity wasn't such in the Biblical sense, but what a divine season she put in the books.
3) Eights were wild at College Park
Maryland, top-ranked and reigning NCAA champion, had not lost at home in
eight years.
Florida had not beaten the nation's No. 1 team in
eight years.
Then UF midfielder
Shannon Kavanagh shredded the Terrapins for a career-high
eight goals, equaling the most single-game output ever by a Maryland opponent (equaling the eight scored by former Gator Lindsey Ronbeck in 2019 in a game her team lost), and the 14th-ranked Gators shocked the Terps 15-14 on Feb. 15.
Kavanagh, the junior from Smithtown, N.Y., had herself a day, going 8-for-13 shooting, winning five draws and registering the groundball that secured the win mere second after her go-ahead eighth goal found the back of the net with less than a minute to play.
If only she wore No. 8 on her jersey.
4) Fresh(man) face of the franchise
Freshman
Ricky Castillo exited the fall men's golf season with a stroke average of 71.92 that ranked second on the team. His best finish during four fall matches was a tie for 15th.
Then came the spring.
Castillo, a hotshot recruit out of Yorba Linda, Calif., fired five-under and career-low 65 in the second round of the Sea Best Invitational at Ponte Vedra, Fla., on Feb. 4, to win the first tournament of the season and giving the Gators their first individual tournament title since Andy Zhang won the 2018 NCAA Regional. Castillo also became the first UF freshman to win an event since
Sam Horsfield in 2016.
Guess what happened after that?
Yes, two weeks later, Castillo destroyed the UF Golf Course with a 13-under 197 and ran away with the individual title at the Gator Invitational by a fat eight strokes. He did it with a blistering second-round score of 63, and followed that with a final-round 64. His performance helped give the Gators their first victory in their home tournament in nine years.
When the season crashed in mid-March, Castillo was a collective 26-under par through three tournaments, with a stroke average of 67.78, with an adjusted stroke average of 70.08 that went into the books as the best in UF program history. In April, Castillo was named the 2020 Division Phil Mickelson Award winner, given annually to the nation's top freshman.
Big things on the horizon for this kid.
5) Smoke on the water
Sophomore Kieran Smith sprinted his way to UF's seventh SEC Swimmer of the Year honor of the last decade.
Another year, another SEC Swimmer of the Year.
Make that seven in 10 years for the Gators after
Kieran Smith, the sophomore from Ridgefield, Conn., was the star of the conference meet at Auburn in February with a run of record-breaking swims, including an American record in the 500-meter freestyle event that made its way to SportsCenter Top 10 that night.
Three nights later, the Coach
Anthony Nesty and the Gators were celebrating an eighth straight SEC championship.
Smith's time of 4:06.32 in the 500 free beat the previous American mark by nearly a full second and bested the NCAA record by nearly two seconds. Smith also posted UF and SEC marks in his leadoff split in the 200 free relay (1:30.11), helping the Gators to their eighth consecutive title in that event. On the meet's third day, he won the 400 individual medley in 3:37.31.
In garnering the SEC's top performance honor, Smith joined
Conor Dwyer (2010-11),
Marcin Cieslak (2012, 2014) and
Caeleb Dressel (2016-18) in the lengthening list of Gators to be so hailed over the last decade.
6) Keyontae classic
When the season began last November, few would have anticipated the best player on the men's basketball team would be sophomore forward
Keyontae Johnson.
But the signs were all there.
Johnson, the 6-5, 230-pound from Norfolk, Va., exited his freshman year as the Gators' most improved player, when he became the first UF freshman in 20 years to post back-to-back double-doubles in the SEC Tournament. It was when Florida, with two losses in its first two games, went to the Charleston (S.C.) Classic to play in the eight-team tournament that Johnson really enjoyed a breakout/breakthrough kind of performance.
In sweeping to victories over St. Joseph's, Miami and then unbeaten and 18th-ranked Xavier in the title game — and claiming the program's first regular-season tournament title in 10 years — Johnson was sensational and was duly honored as the event's Most Valuable Player. For the tournament, Johnson averaged 16.3 points, 8.0 rebounds and shot 61 percent, and used the run as a springboard of confidence for what turned out to be a first-team All-SEC season.
When the season ended (prematurely), Johnson led the team in scoring at 14.0 points per game on 54.4-percent shooting overall, 38.0 from the 3-point line and 76.8 from the free-throw line. His 7.1 rebounds per game were second the team, but his eight double-doubles were tops.
After the season, Johnson briefly waded into the NBA underclassmen waters, but didn't stay in long. He'll be back in '20-21, accompanied by immense expectations.
7) Perine blows up at bowl ... again
Senior tailback Lamical Perine rushed for 138 yards and scored three touchdowns in his final UF game, the team's win over Virginia in the Orange Bowl.
A case can be made (a really good one, actually) that
Lamical Perine's electrifying 88-yard fourth-quarter touchdown run to help clinch the win over No. 7 Auburn should have been on the list of memorable "Team" moments. It may have been the most deafening the "Swamp" had been in years.
Listen.
That was one play, albeit a big one. Perine one-upped that moment with several others in UF's 36-28 defeat of Virginia in the Orange Bowl when he scored three touchdowns. A year earlier, in Florida's defeat of Michigan in the Peach Bowl, Perine joined
Percy Harvin as the only UF players to have both a TD run and reception in a bowl game. Perine turned the trick a second time against the Cavaliers.
Perine scored on a 61-yard dash just 40 seconds into the game and by the end of the first period also caught a 16-yard TD from Trask. His 10-yard scoring run in the third quarter put the Gators ahead 24-14, and the senior from Mobile, Ala., went on to rush for 139 yards on 13 carries, plus catch five passes for 43 yards to earn MVP honors in his final collegiate game.
8) Perfection x 3
When the second-ranked gymnastics team went to Penn State on March 7, the Gators already had their first unbeaten SEC season stashed and were looking to finish their first perfect regular season.
It began and ended, appropriately enough, perfectly.
First, senior
Sierra Alexander popped a 9.95 on vault, the maximum score that can be achieved on a Yurchenko full vault.
Next,
Trinity Thomas, back in her home state of Pennsylvania, scored a 10.0 on floor, giving her perfect marks in three different events (uneven bars, balance beam and floor) on the season; the only gymnast in the nation to do so. A trinity of perfection, if you will (yes, there's that pun again).
And, finally, senior
Rachel Gowey — like Alexander, in what turned out to be her final collegiate turn — turned in a flawless beam routine to give the Gators three perfect scores in the same meet, pushing UF to a score of 198.10, its second-highest of the season, to an easy victory over the Nittany Lions and a 10-0 record. It marked the fourth time in program history that UF earned 10.0s on multiple events, but the first time on the road.
9) State of Grace
SEC Freshman of the Year Grace Stark chomps with her silver medal in the 60-meter hurdles at SEC Indoors.
The SEC announced its postseason accolades the week of March 9, which coincided with the run-up to the NCAA Indoor Championships in Albuquerque, N.M. So that's where
Grace Stark was when she learned she'd been named SEC Freshman of the Year after twice breaking the world under-20 record in the 60-meter hurdles at the SEC meet two weekends before.
Stark, out of White Lake, Mich., gradually chopped her times as the season wore on, hitting 8.16 in the Razorback Invitational on Jan. 31, then a month later going 7.91 at the SEC meet at Texas A&M, good enough for second place and barely falling shy of the UF record (7.88) in the event.
Hers was the fastest time in the nation for a freshman, and second-fastest overall.
Imagine what she can do with three more seasons alongside incomparable Coach
Mike "Mouse" Holloway.
10) See you later, Canes!
Florida went to Miami for a series huge early season series against the Hurricanes on Feb. 21. How huge?
UM was ranked No. 1. UF was ranked No. 2.
The Gators were 46-80 all-time at Mark Light Field, but had whittled away at that margin in recent years by winning 12 of the previous 15.
UF took the first game 2-1, but trailed the second game by one run in the top of the ninth and down to its last strike when sophomore
Jud Fabian lashed a game-tying double down the third-base line that scored
Kris Armstrong from second to knot the game at 2-2 and set off a wild celebration in the visitors dugout.
The first of two.
The game went into extra innings, and two pitches into the 10th, senior
Kirby McMullen crushed a titanic, go-ahead solo homer just inside the left-field foul pole, sending the Gators' dugout into delirium. Three singles, a couple walks and a throwing error helped Florida take a 7-2 lead and eventually won 7-4.
For McMullen, the senior, the homer was just the second and his career. The timing, obviously, was perfect, but in a big-picture way, as well. UF went into the game having gone just 2-42 over the previous two seasons when trailing heading into the eighth inning. McMullen's big fly represented a big slump-buster for Coach
Kevin O'Sullivan's program.
The next day, the Gators won the third and final game of the series 5-3 for the first road sweep of the Canes since 2012 and assumed UM's spot at the top of the polls, a spot the Gators held for the rest of the shortened season.
