Special to Gatorsports.com
LUBBOCK, Texas — Florida allowed nine runs in the fourth inning, and tried as it did, couldn’t overcome the deficit Sunday, as Dallas Baptist eliminated the Gators from the NCAA Lubbock Regional, 9-8.
The Patriots (43-19), who knocked the Gators into the loser’s bracket with an 11-8 win in the opener Friday, will play top-seed Texas Tech (41-17) later today in the regional final.
Florida’s season ends at 34-26.
Florida had a 2-0 lead through the first three innings thanks to a run-scoring grounder and later a home run from Austin Langworthy, his 10th of the season. Then the top of the fourth happened.
Dallas Baptist had only one hit entering the fourth off UF starter Nick Pogue. When the half frame was over, the Patriots had scored nine runs on seven hits, four walks and a hit batsman in sending 15 batters to the plate. Seven of the runs came after two were out. Bryce Ball and Andres Sosa hit long home runs, Augie Isaacson drilled an RBI double, Luke Bandy hit a two-run single and Jimmy Glowenke hit a three-run home run to cap the most runs allowed in an inning by UF this season.
Pogue (1-1) gave up six runs on six hits and reliever Nolan Crisp allowed three runs on two hits, two walks and a hit batter. He did not record an out before being replaced by Ben Specht.
“The beginning just got us,” UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “Gave up seven runs with two outs and couldn’t quite stop the bleeding. That’s been our M.O. the entire year.
“Unfortunate that we weren’t able to stop it. I haven’t been involved in many innings like that. I think the three-run homer is probably the one that probably got us. You know, just kind of got us in a bad position there.”
Not to be outdone, Florida scored four runs in the fifth inning to cut the deficit to 9-6. After two outs, Langworthy singled and later scored on Nelson Maldonado’s double. Brady Smith then hit a RBI single and Wil Dalton (eighth) followed with a two-run home run to account for the run production.
Florida had an opportunity to cut further into the deficit after two were out in the sixth. Singles by Jacob Young and Brady McConnell and a walk to Langworthy loaded the bases, but Maldonado struck out with a full count.
The Gators made it 9-7 in the seventh on Jordan Butler’s RBI single, but stranded two in scoring position.
Specht kept the Gators in the game by pitching a career-high 4.1 scoreless innings. He was replaced in the ninth by Tyler Dyson, who last pitched on April 20. He struck out two of the three batters he set down.
The Gators came within one in the ninth. A single by Dalton, a walk to Calilao, a sacrifice bunt by Cory Acton and a RBI grounder by pinch-hitter Kirby McMullen made it a 9-8 game with two outs. Burl Carraway finished his sixth save by getting Young on a groundout to second with the tying run at third base.
“This is probably the most resilient offense I’ve had in 12 years,” O’Sullivan said. “They continue to scratch and claw and do what they needed to do to get us back in the ballgame. Most teams down 9-2, it would be tough to come back, and you know we got one base hit away from tying up the ballgame there in the ninth.”
Jimmy Fouse (6-0) allowed seven hits and six runs in five innings for DBU.
Too young this year but I like the future.
Simply amazing that a team can throw 8 innings of shut out baseball and still lose 9-8
Coach left pogue in too long and then replaced him with the wrong guy, thats all. once he changed there was no more runs. If only. Bad pitcher choice. Cant be winners every year. Pitching has been their achilles this year.
Daz, I guess that you know more baseball than our coach. Don’t you think that he knows his player just a little more than you do? Our pitching staff was mediocre for most of the year, you cannot win many games if your pitchers can’t hold the opposition to less than 6 runs a game.
Time to fire both coaches on the diamonds. They obviously dont know as much about coaching as several of our posters here, and I’m sure UF could save some money with the new coaches 😎
Looking forward, I can’t see any of the Juniors/3rd year players being high MLB draft choices, so we should not have the early attrition of the recent past seasons. They will miss Maldanado though. With the majority of this team right now being underclassmen, and one of Sully’s annually strong recruiting classes, next season should see a return to the top tier level that this program has become. Everyone has a blip from time to time, and this season should be a “one off” for the program. Need pitchers badly in the next recruiting class, and that has been Sully’s strength, so he’ll pull some in.
Nick de la Torre said Dyson will be a top 10 pick on potential alone, and unless he really, really wants his degree, he’ll probably go. There probably isn’t much else that Sully can teach him, and he can’t afford another mediocre year next year. Plus, you never have more bargaining power than you do as a junior. If he waits to get drafted as a Sr, then teams will know they can drop him a few rounds and drop his bonus a good bit
I do not care what Nick says, Dyson is not a top 10 pick this year. He may be drafted but not in the first round.
Update: I did not realize that McConnel was eligible for the draft. He will be tough to replace.
The inning that killed them to me was the inning with the bases loaded, Maldanado up, and they get NO runs. He strikes out on a ball 3 miles out of the strike zone. I honestly don’t know what his strategy was but when you get up in the count 3-0, you have GOT to make some sort of contact. 3 things have to happen when contact is made-the fielder has to field the ball, make the throw, and they have to catch the throw. When you strike out you eliminate all of those things from happening. Look for a pitch in your wheelhouse and if it’s not there TAKE YOUR BASE!! Timely hitting escaped them all weekend. Don’t know why Tyler Dyson was saved till the last inning-he could’ve stopped the bleeding but anyway…Young team and we will look forward to bigger and better things next season. GEAUXXX GATORS!!
BRGF, Maldonado will be the first one to admit that he should have taken that pitch for a walk but I will not blame him for this loss, our pitching staff allowed nine runs in one inning and that is the reason why we lost the game.
Don’t think I’m blaming him for the loss, 1972. Just making an observation. Just stating that that inning could’ve been much bigger had he been a bit more selective,
I think Gators lost in the inning when we gave up 9 runs.
Just joshing btw — it was too easy to say.
Hindsight is and always will be, 20-20, but man, if he had started Dyson, or even brought Dyson out of the pen as the 1st reliever for Pogue, we win that game. He said all weekend he wanted to bring Dyson in at some point, which means he had seen something in his bullpens in practice. The freshmen just weren’t ready for this weekend, maybe should’ve tried to give it to someone who was.
Well, rats. It sucks to see both the ladies’ and men’s teams go out so early but both teams fought. It has been an inconsistent year (it happens) but a few weeks ago, even competing for championships was looking unlikely. Nice work fighting your way here and the experience will be valuable next year.
I have to admit, watching all the “young” comments are something else, as we had three upper-classmen pitchers in Dyson, Mace, and McClellan who “supposed” to be the back-bone of our starting weekend rotations this season. All three demonstrated they’ve reached their pinnacle of development and were little better than average at best all season.
Last year, Mace had a sick, two-seamer sinker pitch that I thought would be a huge advantage when he was on the mound, but he had no control over it or any of his pitches for most of the season.
We have a couple of young freshmen that have some good potential in Crisp, Blasucci, but honestly, we will be in the same boat again next year unless Sully really brings in an excellent pitching class again this year. I’m not blaming Sully about his recruiting per-say, just that since Singer Faedo left, our pitching has steadily been in a downward spiral. This last batch of upperclassmen were, imo, mostly a bust.
We need elite talent again, we need to bring those dominant arms into our dug-out again.
Solid scouting and recruiting will solve the pitching problem.