Florida’s first SEC series is in the books and the Gators walked away from a three-game set with Alabama Crimson Tide with a winning record of 2-1.
Both teams faced some adversity from Mother Nature. With a storm set to roll into Gainesville on Saturday, the final game of the series was moved to Friday, forcing the teams to play a doubleheader. For the position players, this isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it’s no easy task to manage a pitching staff when there are 18 innings being played in a day.
Of course, both teams were already figuring out their pitching plans due to starting the series on a Thursday, a day earlier than the rest of Florida’s weekend series this season.
UF played two very good games to start the series. On Thursday, [autotag]Brandon Sproat[/autotag] did what aces do and threw a complete-game one-hit shutout to lead Florida to a 3-0 victory. The early game on Friday was a different story, though.
Alabama had the lead for most of the ball game, but Florida kept chipping back until finally delivering a walk-off, 8-7, win in the bottom of the ninth. Unfortunately, the Gators fell flat in the second game of the day, 6-3.
It was an encouraging first weekend of conference play in many ways for the Gators. Here’s what we learned about the team.