It's only April but Saturday's rubber match had a must-win feel to it and the Florida Gators (18-9, 5-4 SEC ) came out with that kind of edge.

A back and forth series came down to the final inning of the Saturday rubber match with Ole Miss (21-6, 7-2 SEC) getting the tying run to second base in the ninth inning before succumbing to Florida 6-5.

Freshman Jordan Carrion took over the game with his first career home run, and 1.2 scoreless innings on the mound. Carrion became the first Gator to homer and strike a batter out in the same game since Austin Langworthy accomplished the feat in the decisive game of the 2017 Gainesville Regional against Bethune-Cookman.

Florida got on the board in the first inning. Jacob Young, who set the table and tone all weekend at the top of the order, walked and advanced to third on a Nathan Hickey single to right field. Kirb McMullen lofted a long fly ball to center to score Young and give Florida a 1-0 lead. Young tripled to start the third inning and Hickey drove him in with a sacrifice fly to make the score 2-0. Carrion hit a solo home run, the first of his career, into the visitor's bullpen to make it 3-0.

"It was awesome," Carrion said of the milestone. "It was a surreal feeling."

Hunter Barco had been working in and out of trouble but it caught up to him in the fifth inning.

Ole Miss started the frame with back-to-back singles and Barco walked John Rhys Plumlee to load the bases. He induced a double play but it plates a run to cut into the lead and Jacob Gonzalez's single to center field made it a 3-2 affair.

Florida pounced on the Rebels for three runs in the bottom of the inning. Young led off another inning by drawing a walk and Nathan Hickey crushed a 0-0 slider over the wall in right field, scoring two. Sterlin Thompson tripled and Jordan Butler singled him home to make it 6-2 Florida.

Trey Van Der Weide replaced Barco after the starter walked Tim Elko. The reliever allowed one unearned run in the sixth but quickly fell apart in the seventh.

Van Der Weide recorded two quick outs back-to-back singles followed by a triple made it a one run game and O'Sullivan turned to his freshman shortstop. Carrion had to take off a blue sleeve on his right throwing arm and get a new glove from the dugout before taking the mound but he embraced the moment.

"I'm always asking for the ball," he said after the game. "If the game is on the line I want the ball."

Carrion got Justin bench to ground out to Josh Rivera at shortstop to get out of the jam.

"He's just a baseball player," O'Sullivan said. "He's going to throw strikes. He's competitive. You don't know how it's all going to turn out but I felt good with the effort he was going to give in a tight ball game like that. He had a heck of a game."

He pitched into the ninth inning, but a couple of seeing-eye singles gave Ole Miss two on with just one out and O'Sullivan turned to second year freshman Ryan Cabarcas. The lefty retired the next two batters on just five pitches.

"There's never a must win until you get towards the latter part of the year and you see how things unfold. We got swept last weekend and you don't want to lose a series at home, then you're fighting an uphill battle when you go to Tennessee next weekend," O'Sullivan said. "It was an important game for us, no question. Hopefully this game will jump start us a little bit."

Kevin O'Sullivan made the decision to pull Tommy Mace and Jack Leftwich from their normal starting roles, replacing them with Franco Alemán and Christian Scott. The move worked to perfection on Thursday with Alemán throwing four and Mace five to get the win. It didn't have the desired effect on Friday, with Jack Leftwich taking the loss out of the bullpen.

O'Sullivan said he wasn't sure if they would keep the rotation the way it was this weekend or if he'd continue tinkering with it.

"I thought they really responded well with some of the role changes. We've got some decisions to make moving forward against Tennessee but we'll figure it out. I don't know (if this weekend rotation will remain the same against Tennessee). I think it may change the way we handle both Franco and Christian, for sure. Instead of waiting and kind of getting a feel for the game on Friday and Saturday, I feel more comfortable that we can extend them and I think the whole key is the Friday starter needs to give us six innings. If we can get six out of the starting pitcher on Friday that really, really shortens up the weekend for us as far as getting outs out of the bullpen. I think that's one of the biggest takeaways from today or this weekend."