There are weekends that you always want to remember, moments taken with mental snapshots that make you smile.
Maybe it was your wedding or the day your boss got canned or Florida 52, FSU 20.
Those kinds of days.
Sunday was not one of them for the teams that use bats and balls this time of the year.
On one side of Hull Road, Florida finished off one changing of the guard. On the other side, an hour later, they were part of another one.
This was supposed to be a big weekend for both the baseball and softball teams with a pair of top 10 teams coming to town. Instead, it was a clean sweep in the worst way.
Arkansas finished off the Gators softball team first — a 2-0 win against a team the Razorbacks had lost 30 straight against when the game started Friday night.
Then, it was baseball, a brutal home loss to allow Tennessee the sweep of a series where it was Florida that needed to make some noise.
Six games.
Six losses.
It was the first time Florida has been swept at home in baseball in nine years. That sent me scurrying through the records to see if both programs had been swept at home on the same weekend.
I know that it hasn’t happened since [autotag]Tim Walton[/autotag] and [autotag]Kevin O’Sullivan[/autotag] showed up in Gainesville, but I didn’t go all the way back to the really old days because I needed to submit this in time for publication.
The point is that two programs had opportunities this weekend – softball to get back into the picture as a national seed and baseball to get back into the mix as a host for the first round of regionals.
Instead, both of those things are in jeopardy and any chances of winning the SEC are gone.
Meanwhile, Arkansas showed why it will win the SEC for the second straight year (shared with Florida last year), which is amazing considering this was a one-win team in the conference not long ago.
Meanwhile, baseball is in terrible trouble when it comes to simply making the NCAA Tournament.
“We’re finding a way to do the wrong things at the wrong times,” said O’Sullivan, the frustration showing on his face. “I’m at the point where there isn’t much to say.”
Florida lost the first game because it gave up seven runs in one inning. The Gators lost the softball opener when they gave up nine runs in two innings.
Baseball lost the series because it had 11 hits in three games. And that was almost enough to salvage a game Sunday because of [autotag]Brandon Neely[/autotag]’s performance, going seven innings and taking a no-no into the seventh.
But closer [autotag]Blake Purnell[/autotag] gave up three runs in the ninth to allow the game to be tied and lost it on a two-run homer in the 11th by Christian Moore, who also had the game-tying hit.
Florida is now 23-17 and 6-12 in the league.
Tennessee, now 17-1 in the SEC, is going to win the conference easily. Another torch gets passed from what was a dominant program to the new dominant program.
“We’ve been No. 1 for a long time around here,” O’Sullivan said. “I don’t see anybody we are inferior to.
“But the game is a bit unforgiving.”
The baseball team still has four weekends to try to right the ship with a young team. UF probably needs to win seven of the 12 conference games to make a regional.
The schedule eases up after what has been a rough three weeks in a row.
The softball team has a trip to LSU before it plays host to the SEC Tournament. But winning in Gainesville hasn’t been that difficult for visiting ball teams.
Combined, baseball and softball are 7-15 in SEC games at home.
AT HOME.
That’s not the way it usually works around here.
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