![Florida head coach Kevin O'Sullivan heads to the dugout before an NCAA baseball game at Condron Family Ballpark at Alfred A. McKethan Field in Gainesville, FL on Friday, April 24, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_2717,h_1528/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/213/01krtz9znj2p0bk1z05c.jpg "Florida head coach Kevin O'Sullivan heads to the dugout before an NCAA baseball game at Condron Family Ballpark at Alfred A. McKethan Field in Gainesville, FL on Friday, April 24, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]")
At times this season, it looked like the Gators were as bad a fundamental baseball team as one could conjure up. And despite all the Quad One wins the Gators had racked up, they also racked up more Quad Three and Quad Four losses than one would have wanted.
This weekend in Baton Rouge, to close out the regular season, was far from perfect, and there will still be question marks surrounding this team, but after a sweep of the Tigers, the Gators ended SEC play with one of their more successful campaigns in quite some time.
Florida sweeps LSU to end regular season
Florida’s bats once again came alive en route to a 15-run afternoon. Nine of those runs came in the 8th and 9th innings, and it was Hayden Yost smashing three home runs en route to a five RBI day that propelled Florida.
But the Gators needed every one of those 15 runs as Florida’s bullpen struggled late to keep a lid on things, including Caden McDonald looking mortal.
Florida ended up winning the game 15-11 to sweep the series against LSU. Florida is now on a five-game winning streak against LSU, the longest in school history.
More significantly, the Gators ended SEC play 18-12 and earned the No. 5 seed for the SEC Tournament. Florida lost out on tie breakers to Alabama and Texas A&M for a top four seed and a double bye in the SEC Tournament.
But the 18 SEC wins by Florida are the second-most the program has put together since 2019, with 20 SEC wins in 2023 being the only year that went better.
At this point, Florida is a lock to host Regionals in the NCAA Tournament, even if they lose their first SEC Tournament game to the winner of Kentucky and Vanderbilt. The real question is whether or not Florida can sneak into the top eight to potentially host Super Regionals.
The Gators jumped two spots in RPI and are now No. 10, with Nebraska, Southern California, and FSU ahead of them. Florida has very real arguments why they should be ranked ahead of all three of those schools once the selection process starts kicking into full gear.
Florida will take the field on Wednesday at 2 PM to kickstart their SEC Tournament, which will be a single-elimination format.
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