UF baseball sweeps No. 8 Louisville

<p>Irony has a funny way of showing up at the right times.</p><p>After committing a throwing error on the first play of the season Friday night, Florida shortstop Mike Mooney more than made up for it on the last play of the series Sunday.</p><p>With the score tied at 2 and two outs in the bottom of the ninth and runners at first and second, the 5-foot-8, 160-pound junior ripped a line drive over the head of Louisville left fielder Phil Wunderlich to drive home the game-winning run in UF’s 3-2 victory over the eighth-ranked Cardinals.</p><p>The win gave the 23rd-ranked Gators their first home series sweep of a top-10 team since taking three from No. 10 Ole Miss in 2002.</p><p>“I was wondering when my first [hit] was going to come,” Mooney said. </p><p>“I figured that would be a good time.”</p><p>If not for Mooney’s late-inning heroics, both teams might have left Sunday with a tie. Per NCAA travel rules; there is a two and a half hour time limit for Sunday games where visiting teams use commercial air travel. </p><p>With Sunday’s game beginning at 12:05 p.m., under NCAA rules, no new inning could start after the 2:35 p.m. curfew.</p><p>With that in mind, Mooney said he walked to the plate looser than he has all season.</p><p>“We were either going to tie or win,” he said. “We weren’t going to lose, so I just went up there looking to get a hit and it worked out.”</p><p>Despite Mooney’s struggles offensively, UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan said he didn’t think of replacing him.</p><p>“He swung the bat good for us the whole fall and preseason,” O’Sullivan said. “He stuck his nose on the ball and it went the other way. I don’t think there’s any question who gets the game ball today.”</p><p>Minus Mooney’s hit, O’Sullivan could have given out two game balls to a couple of his new pitchers.</p><p>Freshman Nick Maronde had an exceptional college debut, going 6 1/3 innings, giving up five hits and two earned runs and striking out two.</p><p>Things started a bit shaky for Maronde in the first, where he gave up four hits and both of Louisville’s runs, but he calmed in the second and retired the last 14 batters he faced.</p><p>Junior college transfer Jeff Barfield then came in with two outs and runners at the corners in the eighth. </p><p>After walking third baseman Chris Dominguez to load the bases, he struck out pinch hitter Kyle Cheesebrough and earned the win after retiring three of his next four batters in the ninth.</p><p>After a sweep like this, O’Sullivan said it will be important his team gets over the emotions and doesn’t get caught with a midweek letdown when they host Eastern Michigan</p><p>Tuesday and Wednesday.</p><p>“We gotta learn how to play well on Tuesdays,” he said. “Sometimes you come back from a big weekend like this, you have a day off on Monday and next thing you know, you come out flat on Tuesday.”</p>