Florida (15-7, 3-1 Southeastern Conference) opened its first SEC road series with an extra-inning, 5-3 win against Texas A&M (15-8, 1-3 SEC) on Friday night at Blue Bell Park in College Station, Texas.
“I am very proud with how we competed tonight, it was exciting,” coach Kevin O’Sullivan said in a release.
O’Sullivan gave the ball to freshman Logan Shore, and he had arguably the worst start of his short college career. But it was still a solid outing for the Coon Rapids, Minn., native.
Shore tossed five innings and gave up three runs (two earned) on nine hits. He struck out two batters while walking two others.
“I thought Logan pitching on a Friday night and having to make stressful pitches did very well,” O’Sullivan said.
While Shore was on the mound, the Gators jumped out to an early lead. Second baseman Casey Turgeon scored on a double and an error off the bat of center fielder Harrison Bader, who later scored on a single by catcher Taylor Gushue.
Florida scored its final run of the first nine innings on a sacrifice fly by first baseman Braden Mattson in the third.
Texas A&M responded in kind, tying the game in the sixth inning.
However, the Gators’ bullpen held the Aggies offense, and neither team could break through in the last three innings.
UF reliever Ryan Harris took the bulk of the innings for Florida, tossing 61 pitches in four innings of work while surrendering only one hit.
“Without Ryan (Harris) tonight, we probably don’t win,” O’Sullivan said. “He did extremely well in going a career-high four innings.”
The Gators finally pushed the winning runs across in the top of the 11th.
Mattson singled with two runners on to score Turgeon, and Bader came across on a bunt hit by left fielder Justin Shafer.
Sophomore reliever Aaron Rhodes came in to pitch the 11th and picked up his third save of the season.
“It all starts on the mound, and we made a lot of quality pitches with people on base when we had to,” O’Sullivan said.
Right-hander Eric Hanhold (3-1, 1.93 ERA) gets the ball for Florida in Game 2 of the series at 7 p.m. Right-hander Grayson Long (2-0, 0.26) will start for Texas A&M.
Follow Adam Lichtenstein on Twitter @alichtenstein24
