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Florida Escapes Upset, Walks-Off UNF

The Florida Gators escaped another upset with a walk-off win over North Florida, 7-6, off a wild pitch.
Kyle Lander|
The Florida Gators avoided an upset against North Florida with a 7-6 win.
The Florida Gators avoided an upset against North Florida with a 7-6 win. | Kyle Lander / Gators Illustratedd

GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- The Florida Gators baseball team escaped another upset bid Wednesday night against North Florida, walking out of Condron Family Ballpark with a walk-off 7-6 victory off a wild pitch. With this win, the Gators move to 9-0 on the season and stay undefeated going into the weekend. 

After blowing a 6-2 lead, the Gators loaded the bases in the ninth inning with one out off a a single from Brendan Lawson, a double from Cade Kurland and an intentional walk to Landon Stripling.

Facing Blake Cyr, North Florida pitcher Kaden Humphrey lost control and sailed a wild pitch, scoring Lawson and giving Gators a 7-6 win. 

“I knew it was going to be a difficult game because you're trying to get guys out there for their first experience and you really don't know how it's going to go,” Gators head coach Kevin O’Sullivan said after the game. “Games like this are important to go through…There's a lot of positives to the game tonight.”

Florida put the ball in freshman Jackson Barberi’s glove to start the night against North Florida. He began by posting a zero in the first inning, and the Florida offense took advantage.

Following a leadoff double from Gators outfielder Hayden Yost, shortstop Colby Shelton belted a ball back up the middle and into the outfield to score the first run of the game.

Barberi came back out for the second and kept North Florida off the board again. However, he would only record one more out in the third before his night was done after struggling with his command on the mound. The freshman walked three batters and threw only 27 strikes out of 51 total pitches.

Fellow freshman Niko Janssens replaced him the bullpen, which proved to be the right one for O’Sullivan. Despite an Osprey making it all the way to third base, Janssens was able to close out the inning with a strikeout to keep the Gators' one-run lead intact. 

An inning later, the Gators tripled their lead thanks to a Stripling RBI-single and an error from the North Florida second baseman Carter White that gave the hosts another run. 

In the top half of the fifth, O’Sullivan felt the need to go to a new reliever as he pulled Janssens and placed southpaw McCall Biemiller in the game after the former put runners on first and second with two outs. Biemiller did walk the first batter he saw but got out of bases loaded situation in the fifth, inducing a flyout to end the frame. 

Biemiller would only record two more outs in his Gators debut before being taken out in the sixth with Christian Rodriguez coming out of the pen. The newly introduced pitcher finished off the inning with, striking out the first batter he faced. 

Unfortunately for Gators, it wasn’t Rodriguez’s night.

After getting the first batter of the inning to fly out, the next two hit back-to-back singles to get O’Sullivan out of the dugout and signaling to the bullpen. Coming out of it was lefty Frank Menendez. He faced some problems as well, which led to Matthew Jenkins making an appearance in the seventh. 

And while Jenkins did close out the inning, it wasn’t before North Florida made it interesting.

The Ospreys produced two runs on four singles and a sac-fly, cutting the Gators advantage to just one run. Jenkins struck out the final batter in a bases loaded situation to stop the bleeding. 

However, Florida got all of these runs back and more in the bottom half.

The Gators scored three runs off back-to-back two-out errors leading to every Gator coming to the plate in the frame. Brody Donay did the biggest damage with a two-run home run that put his team up 6-2.

These insurance runs also took some pressure off Jenkins, who quickly worked through the eighth inning, but he couldn’t match his efforts in the ninth as he loaded the bases with zero outs.

Once again, this got O’Sullivan on his feet handing the ball to the new relief pitcher, Caden McDonald, but he couldn’t finish the job before North Florida tied the game. With the visitors reaching deep into their bench, pinch hitter Seth Alford punched a ball in the right-center field gap to clear the bases and even the game at six apiece.  

Florida didn’t let it impact their mentality too much as they found some success with the bats in the bottom of the ninth with Lawson's single, Kurland's double and Stripling's intentional walk before Humphrey sailed a pitch to score Lawson and give the Gators the win.

Looking to the Weekend

Florida will host the Miami Hurricanes this weekend for a three-game series. The opening game of this series is scheduled for a 6:30 p.m. start time on Friday with streaming-only coverage on ESPN+.

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Kyle Lander
KYLE LANDER

Kyle Lander is a contributing writer at Florida Gators on SI. He is also a graduate of the University of Florida with a degree in journalism. On top of his writing, Kyle is a photographer for the site as well. Outside of his work with Florida Gators on SI, he likes to hike, travel, watch movies and hang out with family and friends.

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