Virginia jumped out to a 1-0 lead against Florida at the College World Series on Friday, but one run wouldn’t be enough to dispatch the Gators for the second time this week. UVa snagged a 1-0 win against Florida on Monday, but the Gators staved off elimination with a 10-5 victory Friday.
The win marked the third time at this year’s College World Series that Florida scored at least 10 runs, the first team to do that since South Carolina in 2002. The Gators have scored 35 runs in four games, the most since South Carolina had 35 in 2010.
“I knew it was going to be difficult,” Virginia coach Brian O’Connor said. “Certainly, they’ve had a nice offensive ballclub all year long. They have the ability to score from different spots in the lineup. They’ve got power. They’ve got speed. They’ve got a really, really nice club. I don’t ever try to forecast of what’s going to happen during the game, but I knew it would take a good effort.”
The Gators put that offense on full display with two big innings that ultimately took down the Cavaliers.
In the third, Florida scored four runs thanks to a string of hits. Five out of six batters reached safely during the inning in this order: single, single, RBI groundout, RBI double, RBI single, single. A pass ball scored a run during that stretch as well. When the dust settled, the Gators led 4-1 through the first three innings.
That inning chased Virginia starter Nathan Kirby from the mound after his first start in two months. Kirby, who had not pitched in a game since April 17 against Miami, pitched fairly well through two innings though he did show some inconsistency on certain pitches early. In the third, he started to leave a few pitches up too much and over the plate. The Gators jumped on the opportunity and Virginia quickly made a move since it had Kirby on a 45-60 pitch count anyway in the game. He was in the 50’s when pulled.
“They stayed back on the ball and took advantage of a couple of pitches that I left down the middle of the plate,” Kirby said.
“It was great to see him out there,” O’Connor said. “I knew it was going to be limited. It was going to be somewhere – it wasn’t going to be over 60 pitches. Somewhere between 45 and 60 pitches. We were obviously hopeful that he could maybe give us three clean innings and I thought he looked really good in the first couple, and he was fine in the third. Just Florida is going to – they’re talented and they’re going to make you pay. They’re on the barrel a lot and they’re going to make you pay when you leave pitches over the middle of the plate.”
The Gators put up another crooked number in the sixth inning when they came through with five runs. This time around, Virginia pitcher Alec Bettinger started to lose command after going strong for 2.2 innings in relief of Kirby. Bettinger got just one out against six batters as he hit leadoff batter Josh Tobias with a pitch and surrendered two walks as well as two hits. That brought David Rosenberger to the hill, but Florida made contact with three straight batters (fielder’s choice, single, single) for three more runs.
In both big innings, multiple players delivered for the Gators. In the end, six different players had at least one RBI in the win. Harrison Bader, Richie Martin, and Mike Rivera notched two RBI each to really set the pace for Florida.
“We have a tendency to have big innings,” Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “In order to have big innings you have to have a consistent lineup, 1 through 9, and not necessarily is it the first four, five guys in your lineup but the guys that hit 7, 8, 9. I think we’re getting a lot of contributions up and down the lineup and it just allows us when we get things rolling in an inning to build some big innings.”
UVa’s three-run seventh inning and five runs wasn’t enough to overcome those two innings from Florida, which forced a winner-take-all game Saturday night against Virginia in the double elimination pool play format. The two teams square off for a third time at 8 p.m. on ESPN and the winner will play Vanderbilt for the National Championship in a best-of-three series.
The Cavaliers have Connor Jones, Brandon Waddell, and Josh Sborz all available to pitch in the game, but O’Connor hadn’t decided which direction to go after Friday’s game. Jones logged six innings of work and allowed three runs last Saturday in a 5-3 win against Arkansas. Waddell shut down Florida’s offense in Monday’s meeting as he allowed zero runs and two hits in seven innings of work. Sborz closed both victories and has allowed just one hit in five innings pitched at the CWS.
“I feel good about tomorrow,” O’Connor said. “I haven’t decided who will start. But we certainly have a couple of different options. And I feel good about it. We’ve got some pretty darned good guys left, and so we’ll see what the right decision is. We’ll make a decision at some point this evening on what we’re going to do.”
