Florida avoids total embarrassment but seeds of doubt have now been planted

One of the reasons why the 2025 season felt like a wasted opportunity for Florida was because the Gators had rebounded from their disastrous start in SEC play, felt like one of the hottest teams in the country, and then faceplanted in the NCAA Tournament when it felt like all the bad habits the Gators had exhibited returned at once.

This past weekend felt a bit like that as Florida Baseball entered their weekend series against High Point with a 13-game winning streak, only to have to stage a 9th inning rally to avoid getting swept. And while Kevin O’Sullivan spent the weekend trying not to hit the panic button, it’s the ghost of the 2025 season that lingers as SEC play will get underway this upcoming weekend.

Florida survives to avoid getting swept

The Gators had to stage a four-run rally in the 9th inning to beat High Point in the series finale 12-11. The game was delayed in the 3rd inning due to lightning, and everything from a pitching and defensive standpoint went south.

In the 4th inning, two errors, along with two batters hit by pitch, contributed to a six-run inning for High Point that gave the Panthers a 10-6 lead. It was 11-8 heading into the bottom of the 9th, where Florida used a Brendan Lawson home run, a Caden McDonald single, and five walks to litteraly walk it off after Colton Schwarz's bases-loaded walk.

But 9th inning rally aside, it was a weekend defined by High Point playing cleaner baseball than Florida. It wasn’t a case of the Panthers getting some fortunate hits and bloops here and there; they were just straight up the better team for large stretches of the weekend. Even with Sunday’s win, only five of High Point’s eleven runs were earned.

Coming out of the Miami series, where Florida looked far sharper and far more like a top ten team, the problem with a bad weekend like this is that it awakens the ghosts of 2025 with SEC play about to begin.

Because if we rewind to last season, Florida was 16-2 after beating FSU, and it seemed like all would be well in Gainesville. Then the Gators embarked on their month-long slump to open SEC play, where Florida consistently looked like a bad fundamental baseball team. 

This week’s slate of FSU, followed by a weekend series against South Carolina, should be telling as to whether this weekend was simply a blip or whether it is foreshadowing 2026 being a sequel to 2025.