No. 13/21 Florida Overpowers UNF in Midweek Finale

Tuesday, May 5

Gainesville, Fla.

6:30 PM

Florida Gators

32-17

North Florida

26-21

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
North Florida	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	4	2
Florida	4	0	0	2	1	2	2	11	10	1

UAA Communications photo by Maddie Washburn

No. 13/21 Florida Overpowers UNF in Midweek Finale

Tuesday, May 5, 2026 | Baseball

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The Gators held the Ospreys to four hits and took a shutout into the seventh and final frame.

By: Sullivan Bortner

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – No. 13/21 Florida capped off midweek play with a wire-to-wire, 11-1 run-rule victory over North Florida in seven innings at Condron Family Ballpark on Tuesday night.

UF starting pitcher Cooper Walls teamed up with reliever Billy Barlow to shut out the Ospreys (26-21) across the first six innings of play, propelling the Gators (32-17) to an 11-3 record in midweek play to conclude the non-conference season. Kyle Jones (2-for-4) and Blake Cyr (2-for-4) scored two runs apiece and logged multi-hit efforts as did Landon Stripling (2-for-4), who also homered for the second-consecutive game while driving in a pair.

Walls retired the Ospreys in order in the top of the first and the Gators pounced with four runs in the home half to open an early lead. Jones cranked a leadoff double into the left-center gap, followed by a walk to Brendan Lawson and hit-by-pitch of Cyr to load the bases. Ethan Surowiec then walked to force home Jones for the first run while Caden McDonald stayed red hot with a two-run single up the middle. With two down, Cade Kurland capped the rally with an RBI single to right-center to make it 4-0 Florida going into the second frame.

Gifted with a four-run lead, Walls faced the minimum again in the second thanks to a 6-4-3 double play for the last two outs. The sophomore ran into some trouble in the third by surrendering a two-out infield single and walk, but stranded both runners in scoring position by inducing a pop-out to shortstop.

Following three scoreless innings from Walls, Barlow assumed pitching duties in the fourth. Barlow quickly blanked the Ospreys by working around a two-out fielding error at first base, firing all eight of his pitches for strikes.

Florida returned to the scoring column in the home half of the fourth with a two-spot to extend the lead to 6-0. Jones flared an RBI single to center to plate Kurland (hit-by-pitch) while Cyr came through with a two-out knock to left field to score Hayden Yost.

Barlow utilized another twin killing – this one of the 4-6-3 variety – en route to another scoreless frame in the top of the fifth. In the bottom of the inning, Stripling pushed the UF advantage to 7-0 with a solo homer to right field on an 0-2 count.

In the sixth, Barlow stranded a one-out double on third base by inducing a groundout to second base and fanning Jackson Toberman for his second strikeout. That allowed the Gators to surge further in front with two more runs in the bottom of the frame, as Cyr used a swim move to avoid the tag on a one-out double to left to get things started. One batter later, Surowiec lined the first pitch he saw into left field for an RBI single and later scored on a two-out double into the left-center field gap off the bat of Stripling to make it 9-0.

Upon Barlow's removal in the seventh inning, North Florida pushed across a lone run to spoil the shutout. With one out, Mitchell Collins hit a sacrifice fly to left-center field to plate Sean Benjamin (walk) for a 9-1 ballgame.

Needing two runs to end the game early in the home half of the seventh, a hit-by-pitch of Yost and back-to-back walks to Jones and Lawson quickly loaded the bases. From there, Cyr grounded into a double play to score Yost for Florida's 10th run while a wild pitch to Surowiec allowed Jones to scamper home safely for a walk-off winner in seven innings, as the Gators run-ruled the Ospreys, 11-1.

Barlow (2-0) was credited with the win, tossing three scoreless innings of relief. He allowed just one hit and struck out two batters while issuing zero free passes.

UNF starter Tommy Groom (0-2) was saddled with the loss, as he did not record an out and was charged with four earned runs on one hit, two walks and one hit batter.

Although Walls did not qualify for the decision, he threw three shutout frames while finishing with three hits allowed, one walk and two strikeouts.

NOTABLES

During Florida's three-game win streak, it has outscored opponents by a 34-8 margin.
Florida produced its second-straight run-rule victory including the team's sixth of the season.
The Gators finished the regular season at 11-3 in midweek contests and 13-3 against in-state teams.
Florida is a now 18-11 against unranked teams this season on top of being a nation-best 14-6 against ranked opponents and repping the most Quad 1 wins in the country (15).
The Gators scored double-digit runs for the third-straight game.
Seven UF starters collected hits.
The Gators sent all nine batters to the plate with four runs on three hits in the first.
Stripling homered for the second-straight game and now has four home runs on the season.
Cyr reached base safely for the 13th-consecutive game while registering his 17th multi-hit effort.
Jones logged his team-leading 18th multi-hit game.
Florida has won 49 of its last 71 regular-season games dating back to last season.
The Gators are now 24-7 all-time and 19-4 in Gainesville against North Florida.
Florida is 24-5 overall and 19-3 at home against the Ospreys under Head Coach Kevin O'Sullivan.
The Gators have won 18 of the last 19 matchups against UNF including 11-straight wins in the series.
Tuesday night's official attendance was 4,552.

FROM HEAD COACH KEVIN O'SULLIVAN
On Walls and Barlow, and starting fast tonight…
"I thought Coop got us off to a good start. I thought Coop's changeup was really good tonight. He threw a couple of good ones to right-on-right hitters, which not everybody can do. Then Billy came in and did a nice job. We wanted to use Ricky real short there because he needs a couple of days in between to rebound. Got some production up and down the lineup. We just try to encourage the hitters. We scored four in the first. We've seen it before where we've gone stale and maybe lost our focus, but we ended up tacking on runs in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh. The idea was to get Schuyler [Sandford] and [Jackson] Hoyt out there for the eighth and ninth, but we scored the two runs there in the bottom of the seventh, so we'll have those guys throw to hitters tomorrow. Everything's a domino effect. When we've struggled on Tuesdays, we haven't gotten the length from our starting pitchers on Sundays and we've had to go to our bullpen so much. So Russ's [Sandefer] outing had a lot to do with managing the game from a bullpen standpoint. Everything sets up everything else. With Russ's outing on Sunday, it allowed us to have a fresh Cooper Walls and a fresh Billy Barlow. All-in-all, it was a good win for us."

On scoring 10-plus runs for the third-straight game and McDonald's impact…
"I don't know, I think hitting is contagious in a good way and sometimes in a bad way. Same thing with pitching. I just got off the radio talking about 'have I seen any improvement in the pitching?' and honestly, you could always look in the walk column and the hit-by-pitch column. The two-out-of-the-first-three pitches for strikes and controlling the counts and that type of thing, and it usually tells you the story. In 2024, Ashton Wilson comes off the bench, we got some injuries, and all of a sudden, he has an unbelievable finish to the season. And now you got Caden McDonald doing the same thing. Maybe his success will continue to get us going a little bit more. Maybe this is going to end up being one of those stories, hopefully at the end of the year, which would be a really nice to finish to the season."

On McDonald's recent run of offensive success…
"He had a good summer. He would probably tell you he was a little inconsistent in the preseason and we've tried to insert him in certain spots and that type of thing. And really, we were struggling at the bottom half of the order. It's really that simple. Gave him an opportunity and like I say all the time, he's a hard worker, he's a great teammate and he's making the most of his opportunity, it's really that simple. That's normally what happens when you continue to work hard and be a good teammate and all of a sudden, you get your opportunity and he certainly has ran with it the last few weeks, for sure."

ON DECK
Florida wraps up its 2026 regular-season home slate against Kentucky in a three-game series from May 8-10.