Florida Baseball entered the series finale against Tennessee, hoping to salvage a win in their opening SEC series. After a hard-fought loss on Friday, the Gators were ambushed in the 7th inning on Saturday in a 10-0 loss.
The Gators started strong against Tennessee, but a recurring theme ultimately sank Florida to a 7-4 loss to leave Florida 0-3 in SEC play.
Florida Baseball: Get The Brooms
Kevin O'Sullivan said he told his squad after the game, "Welcome to the SEC." The message is that while Florida did some things well, if they want to win with any consistency in the SEC, they have to do those things well more often.
Game three of the series started well enough after Ty Evans hit a double to score two runs in the 4th inning. Florida would go on to scratch out a couple more runs in the inning to take a 4-1 lead.
But what caught the ire of O'Sullivan was Jake Clemente promptly coming out in the bottom of the 4th and hitting a guy and walking a guy back to back. Billy Barlow came in and walked two more guys back to back to allow a run to come across.
After another run in the 5th made it 4-3, Barlow got the first two guys out in the 6th before two more walks before a two-run double ended his day.
Tennessee would tack on two more runs in the 8th, while Florida just never got their bats going. The most glaring stat for the Gators coming out of this weekend is that Florida drew just six walks over the course of the series.
Tennessee hitters meanwhile drew six walks just on Sunday and 15 walks over the entire series on top of two more guys reaching after being hit by a pitch.
Florida has now been dropped to 13th in the D1 Baseball national poll, and their road forward isn't getting much easier. The Gators will have two midweek games against Jacksonville and Florida A&M this week before hosting No. 4 Georgia.
Florida is capable of righting the ship, and as O'Sullivan pointed out, the Gators started their 2017 SEC slate by getting swept by Auburn.
It's a marathon, not a sprint in college baseball, but this weekend was hopefully a wake-up call that the race has started in 2025.