Florida Baseball's Biggest Plotlines in the Conway Regional

The Florida Gators fell short of hosting Regionals to open the NCAA Division I baseball tournament and are on the road as the two seed in the Conway Regional. Kevin O'Sullivan and crew will open against East Carolina, with the winner taking on the winner of Coastal Carolina and Fairfield.

This won't be an easy region to navigate, but it is a manageable one if things go right. With that in mind, here are some key storylines to follow throughout the weekend.

Will the Florida Gators take advantage of Conway being a launching pad?

Condron Family Ballpark, where Florida plays, can give up some soft home runs at times just because of the low fence along the foul poles. But compared to where Coastal plays, Springs Brooks Stadium, it can look like Polo Grounds.

Springs Brooks Stadium is just 320 feet down the line, 365 feet in the power alleys, and just 390 feet to center field. Now, the center field fence does double as the batter's eye and is 20 feet high, but there will be opportunities for some balls that might be outs elsewhere to be doubles or more this weekend.

How will Florida set up their rotation?

When Florida went on their CWS run in 2023, the Gators opened their tournament with Jac Caglianone as the starter in game one against Florida A&M, even though he was the standard Sunday pitcher.  

Last year against Nebraska, the Gators opened with Liam Peterson, who had been the standard opening starter.

The standard belief is that Kevin O'Sullivan is going to keep his rotation normal this weekend and start Peterson against ECU, and if they win, start Aidan King against Coastal Carolina (assuming they win) on Saturday.

The goal is to start 2-0, force Coastal into the extra game on Sunday morning, and then figure out a way to beat them again with a combination of bullpen guys.

One argument we made yesterday is to consider having Pierce Coppola open against ECU, get him through four innings, piece together a bullpen day, and save Peterson and King for those two potential games against Coastal. To get out of Conway, Coppola is going to have to throw anyway, so would you rather have him against ECU or against Coastal?

The risk if Florida throws him against ECU is that Cappola could blow up in the 2nd inning, screws over the entire bullpen, and then your tournament run is done before it even began. You can't go 3-0 until you go 1-0, hence why Peterson will probably be the choice.

Will Florida get their annual surprise pitching performance?

One of the reasons why it's going to be extremely difficult for Florida to emerge from Conway if they have to come through the loser's bracket is that they just don't have the depth of arms out of the bullpen to reasonably scrape together four or five games in four days.

With that said, Florida has had someone step up over the past few years and deliver a massive pitching performance out of nowhere.

In 2022, it was Carsten Finnvold coming out of the bullpen just four batters into the game against Oklahoma to pitch nine innings with just two runs against to force the Monday game.

In 2023, Cade Fisher made just his second start of the season against Texas Tech and went seven innings to force the Monday game seven.

And last year, it was Brandon Neely going 5.2 innings with 104 pitches thrown out of the bullpen against Oklahoma State to force game seven.

Is Billy Barlow going to pull a rabbit out of the hat this year? Jake Clemente could go 100 pitches if needed. Also, look for Blaine Rowland to break out in this spot if needed.

Is Coastal Carolina's win streak going to translate?

As Gator fans might remember, Coastal Carolina beat Florida in the 2016 CWS en route to their run to a national title. Since that run, Coastal has yet to make it out of Regionals despite five trips to the NCAA Tournament, twice as a Regional host.

While Coastal comes in with an 18-game winning streak and is ranked 8th in RPI, they have only beaten two teams during that win streak with an RPI better than 99. Since April 15, Florida has played just one team with an RPI worse than 81st.

So there is a narrative to be had that Florida is battle-tested while Coastal could be in for a bit of an adjustment.