GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- It was a momentous night for Florida Gators Senior Captain Nelson Maldonado.
Maldonado entered Friday nights game against Yale with 199 career hits in a Gator uniform. He ended the night with 201. The senior had an RBI single in the first inning and a two-run homerun in the third to propel Florida (11-5) to a 6-5 victory over Yale (3-5).
“Nelly’s been a really good hitter for us for three-plus years now, “Kevin O’Sullivan said, “I’m excited for him.”
Florida combined for 12 hits on the nights and used a combination of small ball and the long-ball to take the opening game of the weekend series.
The pitching rotation was altered slightly for the series as Tommy Mace would take the mound Friday night instead of Tyler Dyson who had been starting on Friday evenings to start the season.
“He (Coach O’Sullivan) told me after my start on Sunday,” Mace said. “He was like ‘I’m gonna pull you now, will you be ready for Friday?’ and I was like yeah I’ll be fine.”
“I texted Brady (Singer) and (Logan) Shore and asked what their routine was and how they got ready in five days. I just kind of tried to figure out how they did it and see if it would work with mine,”
The Gators would strike early, stringing together four singles in the bottom of the first. That led to Maldonado’s RBI single that allowed Wil Dalton to score and make it 1-0.
Yale would manufacture a run in the top of the 2nd to tie the game up. After a Jake Gehri single, Yale used its next three batters to push Gehri around the bases and make it 1-1.
Florida would quickly retake the lead in the bottom of the frame. After singles from Jud Fabian and Brady Smith put runners on the corners, Jacob Young came to the plate. The Gator freshman laid down a bunt to score Fabian and then proceeded to beat out the throw to first for a base hit and make it 2-1.
Maldonado would then extend the lead to three in the bottom of the third. After Kendrick Calilao lead-off the inning with a single, Maldonado sent a 1-1 pitch from Yale starting pitcher Scott Politz into the left field bleachers and made it 4-1.
Yale would get a run back in the top of the fifth after Simon Whiteman lead off the inning with a double and was eventually driven in by Tim DeGraw to make it 4-2.
The Gators would continue to play smallball in the bottom of the sixth to make it 5-2. Jud Fabian would lead off the inning with a double to right-center field. Two batters later, Brady Smith would execute a squeeze bunt to bring Fabian home.
“You’re not going to see us do a two-strike squeeze very much,” O’Sullivan said, “but at that point we needed to do everything we could to try to get that run in.”
“We know we’re not gonna hit 100 home runs like we did last year. The idea is that we’ve gotta generate offense a little bit differently, we hit a couple homeruns tonight, it’s not like we can’t, but if we feel like that’s gonna be our strength as an offense then we’re obviously fooling ourselves.”
However, Yale would tighten the ball game up in the top of the seventh. Harry Hegeman and DeGraw would lead the inning off with a pair of singles. Griffen Dey would chase Mace from the game after he smacked a two-run double to right-center field to make it 5-4.
Mace would finish the night going six and third innings, throwing 90 pitches, allowing four runs on nine hits while striking out three.
Hunter Ruth would relieve Mace and shut Yale down through the seventh and eighth.
Brady McConnell would get a run back for Florida in the bottom of the seventh when he sent a 2-0 pitch to the moon and over the left-field bleachers to give the Gators a 6-4 lead.
Yale would make it interesting in the top of the ninth, as Whiteman scored on a DeGraw single to cut the lead to 6-5 against closer Nolan Crisp. However, Crisp would buckle down and record the next two outs to pick up his seventh save of the season.
Fabian had the best night at the plate for the Gators, going 2-3 and scoring two runs while also being hit by a pitch. He also tracked a deep fly-ball in center field to record the final out of the game.
“He’s a heck of a baseball player,” O’Sullivan said, “he can hit, he can hit for power, he can do the short game if we ask him to do it, he runs the bases extremely well, and you’ve seen him play defense. He’s been extremely valuable for us, extremely valuable.”
Young would finish with two hits and an RBI for Florida as well, while Calilao and Smith would also have two hits a piece with Smith driving in a run. Maldonado would drive in three runs as well while McConnell would go 1-2 with his homerun.
Florida will look to take the series from Yale on Saturday afternoon with Jack Leftwich (3-0, 2.12 ERA) in the mound. He’ll face off against Kumar Nambiar (0-1, 6.52 ERA). First pitch is set for 4pm.
