The Florida Gators baseball team hosted the USF Bulls Sunday afternoon for a pair of exhibition games. It gave both teams the opportunity to showcase some of the young talent on each roster ahead of the 2025 season.
Florida split the doubleheader, winning Game 1, 5-0, and losing the second 2-0.
Here are three takeaways from Sunday’s scrimmages:
King, Whritenour stood out among Florida's freshman pitchers
UF head coach Kevin O’Sullivan sent an array of freshman arms onto the mound Sunday. Some struggled, while others found their footing early on.
Freshmen right handed pitchers Aiden King and Joshua Whritenour had strong outings, which O’Sullivan noted after the game.
“[King’s] mound presence is different than maybe most of the freshmen we’ve had the last couple of years,” he said. “He’s had a really good fall for us.”
King pitched two innings in the first game, surrendering just one hit while striking out three of the seven USF batters he faced. King ranked seventh out of the eight freshman pitchers in Florida’s 2024 recruiting class, according to Perfect Game. The site ranked him as the No. 66 overall player in Florida and the No. 13 right-handed pitcher.
In addition to King, O’Sullivan noted Whritenour threw “really well.”
The freshman pitched one inning in the second game and needed only nine total pitches to retire three batters, all three of which, grounded out or popped out to shortstop.
Experienced arms performed well for the Gators
Sophomore right-hander Liam Peterson will likely be the ace in Florida’s rotation this upcoming season.
On Sunday, the sophomore delivered two scoreless innings and struck out three batters.
“Liam’s taking a step forward,” O’Sullivan said. “You can see his stuff, his mound presence is different.”
Throughout UF’s offseason, Peterson made slight tweaks to his mechanics, which O’Sullivan said has paid off.
“He’s throwing a lot more strikes,” he said. “He’s certainly on his way, for sure.”
Peterson’s delivery on Sunday looked more compact and simplified, and his stride to the mound hardly looked as long as it was during his freshman season. On Sunday, Peterson touched 98 mph on his fastball and there were few occurrences where the Bulls were able to catch up with it.
In addition to Peterson, Florida sophomore right-handers Jake Clemente and Alex Philpott had successful outings. Philpott pitched one clean inning, while Clemente pitched two scoreless innings and struck out three batters.
“[We’re] still working with Jake on his secondary stuff, landing the slider a little bit more,” O’Sullivan said. “There’s no doubting his arm strength.”
Offense falls behind after early start
Florida’s hitters got off to a hot start with back-to-back home runs to leadoff the first exhibition game. However, UF’s hitting slowly worsened.
The Gators logged one hit in Game 2, which lasted seven innings. Although Florida struck out just three times that game, O’Sullivan said Florida’s approach at the plate was inconsistent at times.
“When you’re facing a new arm every inning, it does become a bit challenging,” he said. “I just think we're just swinging at balls out of the hand, and our approaches weren't very good early to count.”
The lone standout hitter among Florida’s lineup was sophomore Stetson transfer Kyle Jones.
Jones hit a leadoff home run in the first game, logging a total of two hits and two RBI Sunday. The 2023 Freshman All-American hit for a .355 batting average with five home runs, 32 RBI and 23 steals last season.
“I like what I did,” Jones said of his homerun. “I felt pretty good going into it.”
Florida will release its upcoming practice schedule Monday. All fall practices and scrimmages will be open to the public.
Contact Luke Adragna at ladragna@alligator.org. Follow him on X @lukeadrag.
Luke Adragna is a third-year journalism student and the Florida Gators football reporter at The Alligator. He is a cat ethusiast and completes the NYT Daily Mini in less than a minute each day.
