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Gators run-ruled by Texas A&M, now face elimination

Untitled designby: Nick de la Torre05/26/22delatorre
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Photo courtesy of UF Communications

Some days you’re the hammer and some days you’re the nail. The Florida Gators were on the receiving end of a Texas-sized beat down Thursday in Hoover. The Texas A&M Aggies jumped on the Gators early, kept their foot on the peddle and beat Florida 10-0, enacting the run rule in the SEC Tournament.

“Credit A&M. They obviously played very well. Their starting pitcher did a real nice job, kept us off balance. But with that being said, we just didn’t play very well in all phases.” Kevin O’Sullivan said. “We didn’t swing the bats very well. We had a poor approach. I think we struck out five of the first nine at-bats, and I think we struck out I think 11 times overall.”

Aggies jump on Gators early

The Gators (36-21, 15-15 SEC) and Aggies (36-17, 19-11 SEC) both went down quietly across the first two innings. Texas A&M pushed ahead in the bottom of the third. Jordan Thompson reached on a leadoff walk, then came in to score on a two-run home run by Trevor Werner to give the Aggies a 2-0 lead.

Texas A&M extended its advantage to 3-0 in the fifth. Kole Kaler led off the frame with a double down the right-field line and later crossed home on an RBI single to left off the bat of Jack Moss. As a result, the Gators turned to right-handed reliever Fisher Jameson. The right didn’t have much more success than Neely. The Aggies plated seven more runs in the bottom of the sixth, as Ryan Targac, Jordan Thompson and Austin Bost all connected for home runs. That pushed the score to 10-0, forcing a tournament-shortened final tally as the contest ended at the conclusion of the top of the seventh inning.

Neely (3-2) received the loss, surrendering three earned runs on six hits and two walks across 4 1/3 frames. He struck out one. Freshman designated hitter Jac Caglianone collected the Gators’ lone hit.

“We’re at the latter part of the season. They’re not freshmen anymore. They’ve had a lot of experience. We played a 30-game schedule in our league. We played on the road. We played three against Miami, and three against Florida State. We played a really good schedule. At this point I wouldn’t use that as an excuse. They’re seasoned enough, they’re talented enough,” O’Sullivan said. When you pitch behind in the count like we did today against a talented lineup, these things are going to happen. We’ve just got to pitch a little bit better, quite honestly.”

Up next for the Gators

Florida will play No. 13 Arkansas tomorrow morning at 10:30 a.m. ET in a win-or-go home game in Hoover. Right-handed pitcher Nick Pogue will toe the rubber for the Gators. Right-hander Connor Noland will toe the rubber for the Razorbacks. The matchup airs on SEC Network.

Box Score

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