By: Tobey Schulman
NCAA Baseball Recap: Florida 10 – FAU 8
After taking a crucial conference series in Tampa over the weekend against USF, FAU traveled up to Gainesville to take on the 2023 College Baseball World Series runner ups, the Florida Gators. The Gators are fresh off of a win against the second ranked team in the country: Arkansas. However, they lost two of three to Arkansas over the weekend and look to bounce back at their home field in yet another matchup against FAU. The Owls looked to take the midweek game over Florida before heading back to Boca Raton for a series against UAB this weekend.
After an amazing 2023 for the Gators, that saw two-way player Jac Caglianone rise to stardom en route to a College World Series run, they headed into the game against FAU 22-21. Florida lost just 17 games all year. While Caglianone is having an incredible year and will likely be taken in the top ten of this year’s draft, the rest of the team as a whole is struggling. The Gators started Cade Fisher on the mound, who after posting a 3.10 ERA in 2023, looks to get back to that previous form and improve his 6.49 ERA.
FAU got on the scoreboard early with a two-run first frame. Christian Adams stayed hot at the plate to deliver an RBI single and Andrew McKenna would bring Adams home with an RBI single of his own to make it a 2-0 game. The Gators would answer in the bottom half of the first. Luke Heyman drove in two with a single and Cade Kurland scored him on a sacrifice fly-out later in the inning to take the lead back at 3-2.
Cade Kurland would keep his great day at the plate going with a solo home run to extend the Gators lead even more in the third. Florida would add another run in the third to take a 5-2 lead, before John Schroeder tripled to bring in two runs cutting the lead to one. The Gators would respond however in the fifth, putting up a three spot to extend their lead to 8-4.
The Owls would keep trying to cut the lead with the bats. In the sixth, John Schroeder doubled to bring in his third RBI of the night, and Daulton Frank got in on the scoring as well with an RBI single of his own. With the score at 8-6, Florida right fielder Ty Evans would record an RBI sacrifice fly-out to give the Gators a much needed insurance run in the seventh. The Gators would add another run to score into double digits and take a 10-6 lead.
FAU would rally late in attempts to keep the game going. In the top of the ninth, the Owls recorded two runs off of a Spencer Rich RBI single and a Joey Slattery sacrifice fly-out. While the lead would be cut to two, that would be all that would come of the late rally as Florida would close it out for the 10-8 win. While FAU came up short, they put across a tremendous offensive effort, managing to out-hit the Gators 14-11.
The Owls go into their final stretch of AAC conference play for the regular season, and should feel great about the consistency they’ve gotten from some of their hitters. Jalen DeBose, Christian Adams, and John Schroeder both put together multi-hit nights and Schroeder made a web gem in right field, robbing Jac Caglianone of a home run. Andrew McKenna has been incredibly reliable at the plate as well lately, and he recorded three hits of his own in the loss. While a loss is a loss, there are certainly positive takeaways from this game that can be carried on for the rest of the season.