Ugly start dooms Florida in SEC Tournament semifinals

Well… the fifth time was the charm for Vanderbilt. The Commodores humbled the Gators in the SEC Tournament semifinals to end Florida’s run.

It’s been a while since we’ve since this version of Jac Caglianone.

Florida’s two-way superstar had put-together back-to-back quality starts coming into Saturday’s SEC Tournament semifinal matchup against Vanderbilt, but Caglianone couldn’t make it out of the second after the Commodores got to him for six runs. Vanderbilt stayed on top all night long holding off the Florida bats for an 11-6 victory and championship-game berth.

In fairness to Caglianone, a pair of early errors extended the first inning and led to things spiraling. Once the Commodores got going, it was hard to stop them. Nick Ficarrotta ended up giving up another four runs in the third to make it 10-1.

Tyler Nesbitt, Blake Purnell, Chris Arroyo and Fisher Jameson all worked in relief. Nesbitt fave up one unearned run and the rest kept Vanderbilt off the bases for the most part.

Making up a 10-run deficit isn’t easy, though. Luke Heyman, Cade Kurland and Wyatt Langford all hit home runs to cut into the lead, but the rest of the lineup wasted too many opportunities with runners in scoring position to come out on top. BT Riopelle drove in two runs as well.

Florida still owns a co-share of the regular season champion title, but it will be either Texas A&M or Vanderbilt that comes out on top of the conference tournament. Once that game is played on Sunday, most of the conference will wait to find out where they are seeded in the national tournament.

Florida should be a top-3 seed in the 2023 NCAA Tournament, and Kevin O’Sullivan just saw what can go wrong in a playoff setting. There is still time to make some tweaks, but this loss might be a bad omen for the club.

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