Caglianone walks the Gators off with dramatic 9th-inning homer

Jac Caglianone sees so few fast balls these days that when he gets one, he knows he better cash in quickly.

Sunday afternoon was one of those times. After a weekend of one offspeed pitch after another and three walks including one intentional on Sunday, Caglianone was at the plate down in the count 1-2 when Mississippi State’s Evan Siary tried to sneak a fast ball by him.

A couple of pitches earlier, Siary had hung a slider that Caglianone turned on a little too quickly, sending a hard liner foul over the berm down the right field line. The changeup wasn’t working so well and Caglianone overpowered that slider, so the fast ball it was. Perhaps whoever calls the pitches for Mississippi State thought that after a steady diet of change-ups and sliders all weekend that a fast ball might catch Caglianone by surprise.

It didn’t.

It was a cut fast ball, belt high and over the plate. It left the yard faster than it arrived at Caglianone’s bat, hugging the right field line just inside the foul pole for a walk-off 2-run homer that gave 6th-ranked Florida (16-11, 6-3 SEC) a 4-3, come-from-behind win and the weekend series against 21st-ranked Mississippi State (19-10, 4-5 SEC).

Caglianone knew he put a good swing on the pitch but he wasn’t 100 percent sure it would clear the fence.

“It was top-spun so I was hoping it had enough to get out,” Caglianone said of his 13th homer of the season. “And, I was hoping it wouldn’t go foul, too, you know. (Dakota) Jordan has a cannon [of an arm] so I wasn’t trying to repeat (Texas) A&M and get thrown out at second. So, I was like please, just get out. I saw him (Jordan) stop running so it kind of sunk in I hit it.”

Prior to his ninth-inning game-winner, Caglianone was 2-10 for the weekend. Friday night he didn’t get the ball out of the infield, but his funny spin squibber bounced away from the third baseman for a hit. Saturday he was 1-4 with a single up the middle, but the best ball he struck was a laser beam line drive right at the first baseman. Sunday, he hit a towering fly ball deep enough to advance a runner to third base in the bottom of the third, but that didn’t even make the warning track.

The Gators managed only four hits Sunday but they got a lot of help from the Mississippi State pitchers who walked six batters and hit five more. Hit batters factored in all four of Florida’s runs. In the third, the Gators took a 1-0 lead when Colby Shelton and Ty Evans were hit on consecutive pitches to lead off the inning. Caglianone’s fly ball advanced Shelton to third and he scored on a wild pitch.

In the sixth after Luke Heyman walked on a full count, pinch-hitter Armando Albert was hit, moving Heyman to second. A sacrifice bunt by Tanner Garrison moved the runners up a base and Hayden Yost followed with an excuse-me tapper down the third base line that he beat out for an infield hit, scoring Heyman on the play.

Caglianone got the start on the mound and for four innings he dominated the Bulldogs. A double, a sacrifice bunt and a single tied the game at 1-1 in the fifth. In the sixth, Caglianone ran out of gas and there went his control. He didn’t walk a batter through the first five innings but he walked four in the sixth when Mississippi State scored two runs for a 3-1 lead.

The last two walks came on eight straight pitches, plating the second run. That’s when Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan brought in freshman Luke McNellie, who has found his niche in the bullpen lately. McNellie thought he had served up serious trouble when Bryce Chance hit a line drive into the gap in right center field, but Evans ran it down and made a diving stab to prevent a bases-clearing extra base hit.

When he saw the ball reach the outfield, McNellie was certain he had given up a hit that would have cost the Gators the game.

“I thought it was getting down,” McNellie said. “That was the point of the game that if he didn’t make that catch we definitely would have lost that game.”

McNellie pitched a scoreless seventh and eighth, but experienced a bit of trouble in the top of the ninth. Chance led off with a single and was sacrificed to second. Colby Shelton made one of the better defensive plays of the game when Johnny Long bounced a ball into the third-short hole. Shelton ranged to his right, looked Chance back to second and left his feet to throw Long out at first.

That left leadoff batter Armani Larry and it necessitated a trip to the mound by O’Sullivan.

“He came out and just said, ‘This kid can’t hit that spin’ so all you gotta do is locate the slider,’” McNellie said. It took four pitches for a swinging strike three to end the inning.

This was the second win of the series for McNellie, who struck out the side in the ninth Friday when the Gators came from down 6-2 in the eighth for a walk-off 7-6 win. In his last ten innings, all of them out of the bullpen, McNellie has allowed no runs, five hits, walked three and struck out 14.

The Gators will be home Tuesday night for a non-conference game with Florida A&M. Next weekend they travel to Columbia to face Missouri (10-18, 1-8 SEC).

SEC Baseball

Sunday’s scores: No. 6 FLORIDA (16-11, 6-3 SEC) 4, No. 21 Mississippi State (19-10, 4-5 SEC); No. 5 Tennessee (24-5, 5-4 SEC) 7, Georgia (22-6, 4-5 SEC) 0; No. 24 Kentucky 24-4, 8-1 SEC) 15, No. 22 Ole Miss (18-11, 3-6 SEC) 1

East Division standings: 1. Kentucky (24-4, 8-1 SEC); 2. (TIE) FLORIDA (16-11, 6-3 SEC) and Vanderbilt (23-6, 6-3 SEC); 4. Tennessee (24-5, 5-4 SEC) and South Carolina (21-7, 5-4 SEC); 6. Georgia (22-6, 4-5 SEC); 7. Missouri (10-18, 1-8 SEC)

West Division standings: 1. Arkansas (23-3, 8-1 SEC); 2. Texas A&M (25-3, 6-3 SEC); 3. (TIE) Alabama (21-7, 4-5 SEC) and Mississippi State (19-10, 4-5 SEC); 5. Ole Miss (18-11, 3-6 SEC); 6. LSU (20-9, 2-7 SEC); 7. Auburn (16-11, 1-8 SEC)

UF WOMEN’S TENNIS: Gators take down Ole Miss, 4-3

Alicia Dudeney scored a 5-7, 7-6, 6-0 win to give the 12th-ranked Gators (12-7, 8-2 SEC) win over 30th-ranked Ole Miss (10-7, 4-5 SEC) at the Ring Tennis Center. The Gators have won seven consecutive matches and have moved within a half match of SEC co-leaders Georgia and Texas A&M (both 8-1 in SEC play).

The Gators will be at No. 27 Vanderbilt (11-5, 6-3 SEC) Friday and at Kentucky (8-10, 2-7) on Sunday.

UF MEN’S TENNIS: Gators get a road win at Georgia

The Gators got their first road win of the season Sunday when they beat Georgia, 4-2, in Athens. The Gators (10-9, 4-5 SEC) clinched when Tanapatt Nirundorn won his match 6-4, 3-6, 6-4. Georgia fell to 10-11, 3-6 in the SEC).

Florida will be home next Friday against Vanderbilt (11-9, 2-6 SEC).