GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- After a 20-7 rout of the sixth-ranked Florida State Seminoles Tuesday, the Florida Gators baseball team turns its attention to the first SEC series of the season.
The seventh-ranked Gators will host the fifth-ranked Mississippi State Bulldogs to open conference play.
“I’m excited for SEC play to get going. I think we’re in a good place after that win against FSU,” freshman second baseman Jacob Young said.
The Gators have rebounded after a shaky start to the season. Florida started the season off 6-4, an uncharacteristic beginning for a Kevin O’Sullivan ball club.
However, since a February 27th lose to UCF, Florida has begun to round into form. Since the defeat, the Gators are 8-1 and are averaging over 12 runs a game.
“Our guys are pretty good at rebounding,” head coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “Obviously, 56 regular season games, it’s a long season and your season is not determined by one game or one series and you’ve got to have the ability and maturity to move on.”
Underclassman have shined so far this season for Florida. Currently, the Gators have six freshman or sophomores starting in the field and two in the weekend pitching rotation.
Young currently leads all starters in batting average, hitting an impressive .417 in 10 starts. In total, three freshman hold batting averages over .300 with Kendrick Calilao batting .379 and Jud Fabian averaging .345 (Fabian also leads the team in home runs with 5).
“For them to be as raw as they are now and competing as well as they are, that when they get a year under their belt playing in the SEC and playing here at Florida, the sky’s the limit for them, and they’re gonna do really well here,” Tommy Mace said.
Sophomore Brady McConnell leads the team in batting average, posting a .389 mark. He is also currently on a 15-game hitting streak.
Unlike Calilao and Fabian, Young wasn’t inserted into the starting lineup at the beginning of the season. After Blake Reese suffered a shoulder injury against Miami earlier in the season, Young was thrust into the roll at second after primarily working in the outfield.
The freshman took advantage of the opportunity, securing his spot as the lead-off hitter in the lineup and holding onto the starting roll.
“He’s been huge, he’s one of the best teammates I’ve ever had,” Young said of Reese. “What he’s done, just coaching me through everything, going through his own stuff, he’s been a huge help I would be nowhere near where I am right now without Blake and I appreciate him a lot.”
“It’s been hard on Blake, he’s a senior captain and hasn’t played as much in the last couple weeks,” O’Sullivan said.” I think his attitude has been outstanding, and it could easily gone in another direction. I mean you see him out there early before practice and he’s taking ground balls with Jake trying to help him out. That says a lot about him and his character and, like I said, the maturity he’s shown.”
On the mound, the Gators have been steady. Florida has lost only one weekend game all season thanks in large part to the weekend rotation. Tommy Mace, Jack Leftwich and Tyler Dyson have all yet to be credited with a loss this season.
“I think I’ve worked with all four pitches nicely and I am happy about that but I think I still need to make them more consistent and keep making them better and better every week,” Mace said.
With the Gators playing its best baseball of the season, so far, the challenge Mississippi State poses will test the young Florida squad more than any team has up to this point.
The Bulldogs have one of the best starting rotations in the conference, with Friday starter Ethan Small posting a 1.50 ERA and Saturday starter J.T. Ginn entering with a 4-0 record and 1.80 ERA.
However, O’Sullivan is confident in his offense.
“The thing that’s encouraging about the offense is we have the ability to score runs in multiple ways,” he said. “Last year we were a bit more one dimensional in hitting home runs, that’s kind of who we were, we hit 100 home runs, but this year, you know, you face some top-tier SEC arms Friday and Saturday, chances are it’s going to be a low scoring game. You better be able to do different things. You’re not going to sit in there and bang out 10-12 hits on a Friday night and score 7-8 runs.”
The pitching staff will have their hands full as well. Senior Jack Mangum opted to not go pro and stay for one more year at Mississippi State. He’s batting a whopping .366 while also recording 12 stolen bases.
“He’s got a chance to break the all-time hits record I think for the league, he’s just a pain,” O’Sullivan said. “We’ve got to a really good job to try to keep him off the basepaths. He’s a good player, I wish he would have signed but he didn’t, so we’ve gotta go through him one more time.”
Eljah MacNamee and Jordan Westburg are also threats at the plate, each batting .361 and .351, respectively.
“I think Friday nights kinda start the weekend and kinda show how our weekends gonna be,” Mace said. “I just want to try and help our team be very consistent and give them a good platform to succeed.”
“It’s a difficult road, there’s going to be a lot of teaching points and learning points over the next two weeks,” O’Sullivan said. “We got off to a solid start on Tuesday but, certainly, this weekend will be very challenging.”
