Gators P Peterson, King Receive Prominent Preseason Nod

Liam Peterson enters the season as Florida's Friday starter, while Aidan King enters the season as the Saturday starter.

Florida Gators pitcher Liam Peterson enters what could be his last collegiate season as the Friday starter. | Kyle Lander / Gators Illustrated

A pair of Florida Gators pitchers earned 2026 Golden Spikes Preseason Watch List nominations on Friday, with junior right-hander Liam Peterson and sophomore righty Aidan King making the cut, USA Baseball announced. 

Golden 1-2 punch 👊👊

ℹ️ | https://t.co/loK0sU3WRY pic.twitter.com/uNa4X6mvc2

— Florida Gators Baseball (@GatorsBB) February 6, 2026

Peterson is a 6-foot-5 righty, hailing from Palm Harbor, Fla., and has been a mainstay in the Gators rotation ever since setting foot on campus. 

As a freshman, he ended with a 3-6 record and 6.43 ERA across 18 appearances (16 starts). He pitched 63 innings in his debut season, striking out 77 batters and walking 44. By the end of the campaign, Peterson earned a spot on the 2024 SEC All-Freshman Team. 

Florida’s ace then took a big step forward as a sophomore. Pitching in 16 games (15 starts), he posted a 4.28 ERA and an 8-4 record. In his time on the mound in 2025, he tallied 96 strikeouts to 32 walks over 69 ⅓ innings. 

Moreover, he logged the third-highest K/9 in a single season in program history, striking out 12.5 batters per nine innings. That number also placed him 20th nationally and fifth in the SEC last season. 

King burst onto the scene as a freshman. The Jacksonville, Fla., native slowly worked his way into the rotation thanks to injuries and movement in the bullpen, taking command of a weekend spot just before SEC play began. 

Come season’s end, King was one of the SEC’s best pitchers and posted one of the best seasons for a freshman pitcher in program history. The 2025 SEC All-Freshman Team selection posted a team-high 2.58 ERA and a 7-2 record across 17 appearances (12 starts), racking up 79 strikeouts and just 23 walks in 73 ⅓  innings. 

King’s ERA was the lowest recorded by a Gator over a full season since Brady Singer’s 2.55 in 2018. Moreover, it is also the best by a Florida true freshman since 2014 when Logan Shore posted a 2.29 ERA. 

His end-of-season run might be even more impressive, though. In his final five starts of the year, King closed with a 3-1 record, 0.94 ERA, .192 batting average against and a 29-to-10 strikeout-to-walk ratio across 28 ⅔ innings. 

The most notable start during this stretch is his start against the No. 1 Texas Longhorns. King shut out the Longhorns in seven innings on the mound and struck out a career-high nine batters en route to a victory. 

However, in his final outing of the 2025 season, the true freshman became the first Gators pitcher since June 10, 2023, to pitch into and complete the eighth inning. Toeing the rubber against Fairfield in the NCAA Conway Regional, he threw a career-high eight innings and surrendered just one earned run while striking out seven. 

These two headline the Gator weekend rotation and provide Gators head coach Kevin O’Sullivan with a strong 1-2 punches for the 2026 season.