The Florida Gators looked like they were going to leave Athens with at least one win, but terrible pitching late in the game Saturday cost UF the game and gave Georgia the series sweep with a 14-8 victory.
The game figured to be a high-scoring affair with [autotag]Garret Milchin[/autotag] on the mound for Florida and Nolan Crisp getting his first for the Dawgs. Crisp won the battle lasting 4 1/3 innings and giving up three runs. Milchin was pulled before he could record an out in the first inning.
Brandon Neely came in relief of Milchin and worked a solid five innings. He was in line for the win after Florida took advantage of a Georgia error in the fifth and jumped out to a 6-2 lead on a [autotag]Jud Fabian[/autotag] home run. Neely gave up one more run in the fifth before turning the ball over to [autotag]Phillip Abner[/autotag]. He pitched a clean sixth but was pulled quickly after walking the first two batters in the seventh.
[autotag]Kevin O’Sullivan[/autotag] came to regret that decision as [autotag]Tyler Nesbitt[/autotag] gave up eight runs in the inning (two of them were charged to Abner). The Bulldogs hit back-to-back homers and took a five-run lead that Florida couldn’t cut into with just two innings left to play. [autotag]BT Riopelle[/autotag] tried his best with a two-run dinger of his own in the eighth, but Georgia responded with another three runs in the bottom of the inning.
Jud Fabian could only watch the final strike of the ballgame go by him as Florida dropped its fifth-straight conference game.
The sweep will knock Florida out of the top 15 in next week’s update and it’s time to start asking how long this team will be ranked if it keeps giving away wins like this.
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