Sophomore right-hander Liam Peterson’s first three outings of the 2025 season were phenomenal. Entering the weekend, he had a 3-0 record with a 1.12 ERA. The Palm Harbor, Florida, native might have outdone himself on Friday night, as he tied his career-high in strikeouts.
The No. 7 Florida Gators (13-2) throttled the Harvard Crimson (0-7) in a mercy rule-shortened seven innings at Condron Ballpark 12-0. It was the Gators’ second shutout victory of the season.
Peterson was fantastic from the first pitch, as he struck out the first five men he faced. He finished with 11 on the night, matching the number he fanned on opening night against Air Force. He tossed five scoreless innings, allowing four hits, only one of which left the infield. His ERA dropped to 0.86 after his fourth impressive outing of the year.
“I felt pretty good,” Peterson said. “I thought my slider was moving a good bit, and I thought I attacked the zone for the most part. Looking back on some of the stats, I thought I threw a good amount of strikes, so I thought I did my job.”
Gators head coach Kevin O’Sullivan turned to freshman left-hander Niko Janssens out of the bullpen for relief. He was untouchable on the mound, tossing two perfect innings on just 23 pitches to close out the Florida victory.
Not only were the arms on point for the Gators on Friday, but the bats were hot as well. Eight of Florida’s nine starters recorded a hit, and six batters drove in at least one run.
UF scored one run apiece in the first and the third to jump out to an early lead. Junior shortstop Colby Shelton brought home the first run with an RBI single, and junior designated hitter Brody Donay matched with a run-scoring double in the third, his 13th extra-base hit of the year
The Gators truly found their stride at the plate in the middle innings, as they drove across four runs in the fourth and six in the fifth. Shelton capped off a big fourth inning with a bases-clearing double to the opposite field. This put an exclamation mark on a 2-for-4 night with four RBIs to keep his hot streak at the plate going.
“I think that was one of the bigger moments in the game,” Shelton said. “It kind of opened the game up, and then the floodgates just opened up. Then we kept scoring and scoring and shutting them down when we went out on the field too.”
UF sent 10 batters to the plate in the fifth inning and six of them scored. Donay, junior left fielder Blake Cyr, senior right fielder Ty Evans and senior third baseman Bobby Boser all drove in runs in the frame. Evans brought home two with a double and Donay finished it off with an RBI triple off the right-field wall.
Due to impending inclement weather on Sunday, Florida and Harvard will play Games 2 and 3 of their series in a doubleheader on Saturday. Freshman righty Aidan King will get the start in the first game and sophomore right-hander Matthew Jenkins is likely to go in the series finale. The double-dip begins at noon EST in Gainesville, with the second game starting following the conclusion of the first. Both games will only be seven innings.
“I think it was important because we play two games tomorrow,” O’Sullivan said. “The fact that we only played seven innings, we obviously saved some arms.”
Contact Hugh Green at hgreen@alligator.org. Follow him on X @HGreen_15.
Hugh is the Spring 2025 baseball beat reporter for The Alligator. He is a fourth-year journalism sports and media major. In his free time, Hugh enjoys watching all kinds of sports with his friends.
