Injuries played a big role in Florida Gators early exit in NCAA regional

Catcher Brody Donay talks it over with Pierce Coppola (UAA Photo)

Florida’s baseball season came to an end in Conway, South Carolina, Sunday afternoon when the Gators were overwhelmed for the second time in three days by East Carolina, 11-4. The easy thing to do is complain that Florida pitchers couldn’t find the strike zone often enough in the two losses to ECU or that hitters popped up and struck out too many times when the Gators desperately needed a lift or that unlike F. Lee Bailey, the defense rested.

That’s real and those kind of mistakes can’t be, nor should they be glossed over. For whatever reason, East Carolina played well above its pay grade both times and in those two losses the Gators looked nothing like a team from the Southeastern Conference. Sunday, for example, Florida’s six pitchers gave up 12 hits, walked seven, uncorked a wild pitch and hit three batters. Florida hitters managed only seven hits, hit into two double plays, struck out eight times and walked only four times.

The defense? There were three errors that led to four unearned runs and a passed ball.

Call this a bad day at Black Rock for a team that won its last six Southeastern Conference series. From a 1-11 start in SEC play the Gators were scorching hot the rest of the way, finishing 15-15 in league play. Had the Gators won another game at the SEC Tournament, they probably would have been a host team when regional seeds were handed out by the NCAA.

At the bitter end in Conway, the Gators looked the part of a team that gave out of gas, in large part because of injuries. It’s not an excuse to point out the injuries, because they forced Kevin O’Sullivan to jump through more hoops than a circus poodle.

"They beat us handily two times," O'Sullivan said. "Obviously, it's always tough when your season comes to an end. You can see the pain they are going through right now. I care about these guys. The resiliency they showed this year, it's just tough. East Carolina deserves to move on. We'll get back to Gainesville, have our exit meetings and prepare for next year."

Think of what the lineup could have looked like except for injuries:

C: First team All-SEC Luke Heyman (.301, 13 HR, 44 RBI), Florida’s hottest hitter during the second half surge and a gold glove behind the plate where he committed only one error and three passed balls. Forty-two career home runs. Brody Donay hit for power in Heyman’s absence but his defense made it obvious why he was mostly a DH and sometime first baseman.

2B: Cade Kurland, hitting .316 with three homers and 16 RBI when he went down with a dislocated shoulder that would require surgery. A 3-year starter when he went down, Kurland played only 14 games.  Thirty-four career home runs. In his absence, O’Sullivan played Justin Nadeau, Boser, Brendan Lawson, Blake Cyr and Landon Stripling at second before settling on Nadeau.

SS: Colby Shelton (.377, 7 HR, 35 RBI) missed the final 16 games of the season when he suffered a wrist injury. Fifty-two career home runs. His absence forced O’Sullivan to move All-SEC defensive team Bobby Boser from third base to shortstop. Boser is an outstanding hitter and very good third baseman, but only an average shortstop. Third base was a defensive adventure the rest of the season.

CF: Kyle Jones was a gold glove center fielder at Stetson as a freshman. He suffered a knee injury sliding into third base after hitting a double against Air Force. He played only four games. A gap-to-gap defender he was expected to be as good as if not the best center fielder in the SEC. In his absence, Hayden Yost settled in as the regular. He had good moments at the plate and didn’t commit an error in the field, but only two outfield assists is telling.

RF: Ty Evans (.267, 4 HR, 30 RBI) fractured his wrist near the end of 2024 and missed the College World Series. He suffered a wrist injury early in 2025. He missed 25 games and spent the last third of the season at DH. Yost played right field early on but moved to center. Nadeau and Ashton Wilson shared right field until Nadeau went to second permanently. Wilson struggled at the plate and was an average right fielder with a weak arm.

P: Lefty Frank Menedez (1-0, 1.29 ERA) was on his way to an outstanding season when he suffered a season-ending elbow injury in a win over Jacksonville. In seven innings, all in relief, Menendez gave up five hits and struck out 12. Menendez might have evolved into a midweek starter or even a lefty closer.

P: Pierce Coppola (3-1, 2.53 ERA, 43 strikeouts in 21-1/3 innings) was brilliant in his first two starts before leaving the Miami game with an injury. At the time of his injury, Coppola had gone 12-2/3 innings, allowing four hits, two earned runs while striking out 23. He missed all but one game in March, all of April and was on a pitch count when he returned in May. A healthy Coppola might have been the Friday night starter once the Gators hit the SEC portion of the season.

A healthy Florida team could have proven formidable. Making a regional after so many injuries contributed to a rotten start in SEC play, is a real accomplishment that should not be diminished by criticism.

SEC in regional play

Nashville: No. 1 Vanderbilt (43-18) was eliminated in its own regional by Wright State (40-20), 5-4, Sunday.

Austin: No. 2 Texas (44-14) staved off elimination by beating Kansas State (32-26), 15-6, Sunday but lost the regional championship to UT-San Antonio (47-13), 7-4.

Fayetteville: No. 3 Arkansas (46-13) won its regional by beating Creighton (43-16) Sunday. Arkansas will host the winner of the Knoxville regional in a super regional.

Auburn: No. 4 Auburn (41-18) trounced North Carolina State (35-21), 11-1, to win its regional. Auburn will host No. 13 Coastal Carolina (51-11) in a super regional.

Chapel Hill: Oklahoma (38-21) hammered Nebraska (33-29), 17-1, then forced a regional championship game by knocking off No. 5 North Carolina (44-13), 9-5.

Baton Rouge: No. 6 LSU (45-15) will have to play for the regional championship Monday after losing to Little Rock (27-33), 10-4, Sunday.

Athens: No. 7 Georgia (43-17) was eliminated by Oklahoma State (30-24), 11-9, Sunday. Oklahoma State will face the winner of Monday’s game between No. 10 Ole Miss and Murray State in the super regional.

Tallahassee: Mississippi State (36-23) beat Northeastern (49-11), 3-2, then lost the regional championship to No. 9 Florida State (41-14), 5-2.

Oxford: No. 10 Ole Miss (43-20) beat Georgia Tech (41-19), 11-9, and Murray State (41-14), 19-8, Sunday. Ole Miss and Murray State play for the regional championship today.

Clemson: Kentucky (31-26) beat No. 11 Clemson (45-18), 16-4, Sunday but blew a 12-7 lead and lost to West Virginia (44-14) for the regional championship. West Virginia will face the winner of the Baton Rouge regional next week in the super regional.

Conway: FLORIDA (39-22) was eliminated Sunday by East Carolina (35-27), 11-4. No. 13 Coastal Carolina (51-11), beat East Carolina, 1-0, to win the regional and advance to No. 4 Auburn for the super regional.

Knoxville: The No. 14 Vols (45-17) lost to Wake Forest, 7-6, Sunday. The two teams play for the regional championship today.

Hattiesburg: Alabama (41-18) was eliminated in two games.

THE INJURY BUG WASN’T CONFINED TO BASEBALL

Think of the 2024-25 athletic year at the University of Florida as one that needed its own M*A*S*H unit. What could have been and might have been for baseball is well documented, but consider what happened in football, gymnastics, men’s track and field, and softball.

Football: The Gators were on the verge of knocking off then 9th-ranked Tennessee in Knoxville when quarterback Graham Mertz went down with an ACL tear. The Gators had just gone ahead of the Vols, 10-0, silencing the Neyland Stadium crowd. The Gators lost the game, 23-17. DJ Lagway played well, but the Gators generated only one more TD the rest of the game. Lagway had the Gators leading Georgia, 10-3, with five minutes left in the half three weeks later. When he went down with a hamstring injury, the Gators had to turn to redshirt freshman walk-on Aidan Warner. Florida lost, 34-20. That’s another game that was winnable. A week later at Texas with Warner at QB, the Gators were hammered, 49-17. Lagway came back the final four games, all of which the Gators won.

Gymnastics: Even before the season began the Gators got bad news when both Skye Blakely and Kayla DiCello were injured at the Olympic Trials. DiCello, a sophomore who made All-America and SEC Freshman of the Year, missed the entire season. Blakely came back but only in a limited role. Healthy she figured to be one of the top ten gymnasts in the country. In a meet with Oklahoma, Sloane Blakely tore an Achilles, ending her career. Blakely probably would have meant a top four finish at the NCAA championship meet, perhaps even a national championship. The Gators failed to make the final four.

Track and field: A grade two quadriceps injury with minor tears to sprinter Wanya McCoy proved devastating to the Florida men. He missed the 60 and 200 at the NCAA indoors as the Gators didn’t make the top ten. Without McCoy running the 100, 200 and relays, the outdoor team will struggle to make a top 10 finish a year after winning the last three national championships.

Softball: The 2024 National Freshman of the Year Keagan Rothrock was shut down for an entire month with a shoulder issue. When she returned, Rothrock had moments of brilliance interspersed with issues giving up home runs. In the latter part of the season she also had to deal with a recurring problem with blisters that caused her rise ball to go flat. She gave up three home runs in a 3-0 loss to Texas in game one at the Women’s College World Series and then didn’t pitch in game two in which the Gators were eliminated by Tennessee. Rothrock went 33-9 in 2024 when the Gators finished third in the nation. She was 16-7 with a 3.24 ERA in half the innings in 2025.

Not all the injury news was bad. Florida basketball won a national championship, in part because during a rash of injuries midway through the SEC portion of the season, someone stepped up to fill the void. The experience gained coming off the bench by Tommy Haugh and Denzel Aberdeen proved critical. When Micah Handlogten elected to burn his redshirt due to frontcourt injuries to Alex Condon and Sam Alexis, the Gators didn’t miss a beat.

Walter Clayton Jr. sprained an ankle against Tennessee so Aberdeen filled in brilliantly in a win over Vanderbilt. When Alijah Martin suffered a hip pointer in the Vandy win, Aberdeen stayed in the starting lineup and had an outstanding game in a win on the road at then No. 1 Auburn. Alex Condon and Alexis went down with ankle injuries at Mississippi State. Haugh stepped into the starting lineup and became a force both offensively with his scoring and passing as well as on the backboards. Handlogten, who was planning to redshirt while recovering from a horrific fracture of his leg in the 2024 SEC Tournament championship game, elected to burn the redshirt to ensure the Gators had enough depth up front the rest of the way. He was a key contributor off the bench.

Without the efforts of Haugh, Aberdeen and Handlogten, the Gators wouldn’t have won the NCAA championship.