![Florida Gators face Opening Day challenger UAB, Friday, February 13, 2026, at Condron Family Ballpark in Gainesville, Florida. The Gators lost Game 1 to the Blazers 9-7. [Cyndi Chambers/ Gainesville Sun] 2026](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_7747,h_4357/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/213/01khe2qz0ajda61m36qw.jpg "Florida Gators face Opening Day challenger UAB, Friday, February 13, 2026, at Condron Family Ballpark in Gainesville, Florida. The Gators lost Game 1 to the Blazers 9-7. [Cyndi Chambers/ Gainesville Sun] 2026")
One of the running commentaries we had last year about Florida Baseball during the front half of the season, when they started SEC play 1-11, was that at times Florida looked like a U10 team in the bronze bracket of a Dothan tournament. The Gators frequently doomed themselves with poor baseball IQ, and it was often times they beat themselves as much as anything.
That eventually improved, and Florida made a late surge, only for Liam Peterson to implode in the NCAA Tournament as Florida lost twice to ECU to end their season.
On Opening Day against UAB, a poor start from Peterson, along with bad fundamental baseball, doomed Florida to a surprising loss in extra innings.
Florida loses to UAB on Opening Day
Baseball is the type of sport where trying to make declarative statements after one game is tough to do. Afterall Florida lost on Opening Day in 2024 and made it to the Final Four of the College World Series.
But Jac Caglianone isn’t walking through that door anytime soon, and Florida’s much-talked-about 1-2 punch with its starting rotation never got the first jab off.
The 1st inning alone summed up the struggles Florida had in 2025, as Peterson couldn’t punch out the first hitter after a deep count, then walked the next guy on four pitches, then allowed a double steal that set up a sacrifice fly. Florida could have gotten out of the inning with just one run allowed, but Landon Stripling dropped an infield fly that enabled a second run to score.
Florida scored two runs of their own in the bottom of the 1st, but another ghost from last year, getting thrown out on the basepaths, once again popped up as Hayden Yost was thrown out trying to advance 1st to 2nd on a sac fly.
Peterson’s day would end after 3.1 innings with five runs, four earned, off three hits and an alarming five walks.
Florida eventually put together a big 7th inning to take a 7-5 lead and was four outs away from putting UAB away. But over the course of the 8th inning, the Blazers put together a single, a walk, and a sac bunt to set up a two-run single with two outs in the 8th to tie the game at 7-7.
The game went to extra innings, and this is where fundamental baseball failed the Gators once again. A walk and an error set UAB up with runners on 1st and 2nd when a wild pitch from Jackson Barberi allowed the runners to advance. From there, a swinging bunt brought home one run, and a groundout to third brought home the second run, neither of which would have scored without the benefit of the wild pitch.
Florida made some hard contact at the bottom of the 10th but failed to score.
Florida beat itself
There is no other way to classify this game other than that Florida was their own worst enemy. UAB scored nine runs off just six hits. Florida pitchers gave up eight walks, and the Gators committed three errors.
It’s one game, and Florida could go on to win today’s double header and put this game behind them, but the self-imposed mistakes bring up the ghosts from last season that haunted this team all the way to the NCAA Tournament.
Due to the incoming weather on Sunday, the two teams will play twice on Saturday. First pitch will be at 2PM, with the second game starting 50 minutes after the first game ends.