The Gator Boys are hot! Down goes Kentucky, UF advances

Pierce Coppola walks off the field after one of his nine strikeouts (UAA Photo)

The Gator Boys are hot! That was the catch phrase coined by Joakim Noah back in 2006 when the Florida Gators marched to the NCAA basketball championship. It was an improbable run for a team that wasn’t supposed to be the last team standing.  

The Gator Boys were indeed a very hot team.  

We could say the same thing about Florida’s baseball team, 15-4 winners over Kentucky in an elimination game at the College World Series in Omaha. The Gators are indeed a very hot team. The win over No. 2 Kentucky advances the Gators to the semi-final round where they get a rematch with No. 3 Texas A&M later this evening.  

Not bad for a team that so many experts said didn’t belong. Florida is 36-29 right now and if they could somehow dream the impossible dream and come back to Gainesville with the big trophy in hand, they could wind up as the team with the worst record ever to win the College World Series.  

At every step since the Gators were a controversial addition to the 64-team NCAA field, Florida has proven the experts wrong. They beat Oklahoma State, which never loses at home, in Stillwater for the regional championship, then took two in a row against Clemson, once again on the road and once again in a place where Clemson never loses. 

Only a hot team can do that.  

Let’s get real here. The Gators should have beaten the Aggies Monday night. Yes, the wind held up what would have been the difference-making home run by Cade Kurland, turning it into a spectacular glove over the wall leaping catch by Jace LaViolette to save the game for the Aggies. No doubt about it, that was one of the great catches in CWS history, but the Gators know darn good and well the game should have never come down to that play. Florida had so many opportunities to score but this was a night with a high swing and miss rate and that proved the 13-inch stiletto in the Gators’ heart.  

Florida lost 3-2. Credit the Aggies with great pitching and defense. Credit the Gators with far too many lost opportunities to punch across runs.  

Since that loss, the Gators have eliminated No. 10 North Carolina State and No. 2 Kentucky. The Gators have done it with home runs – definitely expected since this team has hit 133 of them so far this season – and good pitching.  

Yeah, you read that right. Good pitching. The missing ingredient all season long started showing up in Stillwater and now it is a driving force behind this improbable run. Here is how good the pitching was Wednesday afternoon in Omaha. Pierce Coppola, who came into the game with a plus-nine ERA, went five dominant innings. Sure, he did give up all four Kentucky runs, two on a home run in the fifth, his final inning, but the game was never in doubt. In the fourth when Kentucky was trying to battle back from a 7-1 first inning deficit, Coppola struck out the final two hitters to snuff out a threat that produced one run. In the fifth, after giving up a 2-out, 2-run homer, Coppola struck out Ryan Nicholson, Kentucky’s slugger with 23 homers, on a full count fast ball that had some heat.  

That was the 100th pitch of Coppola’s outing, the most he’s thrown in an injury-filled Gator career. He only gave up four hits and struck out nine, a career high. When he departed, Jake Clemente came on for two innings. He gave up a hit and struck out four before giving way to Alex Philpott, who hadn’t pitched since April 9 when he gave up seven hits and five runs in 2-2/3 innings against Florida State.  

If there was rust or nerves, they didn’t show. Philpott gave the Gators two hitless innings while striking out four.  

What Coppola, Clemente and Philpott did was give Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan options heading into tonight’s game with the Aggies. He didn’t have to use setup man Fisher Jameson or closer Brandon Neely. They go into tonight’s game wtih the Aggies rested and ready.

He [Coppola] had the best start he's had all year,” O’Sullivan said. “And obviously the two guys behind him kept their pitch counts down so if need be we would obviously have them in the cart tonight as well."

For all practical purposes the game was over in the first when the Gators countered Kentucky’s single run in the top of the first with a 7-spot that was highlighted by a grand slam by Brody Donay. The grand slam was like dropping the hammer on the Wildcats, but the tone for the entire inning was set by Jac Caglianone. Leading off for the first time in his career, Caglianone rocketed a hard liner into right center field to jump start the Florida offense. Cade Kurland was hit by a pitch and one out later, Colby Shelton doubled into the right field corner to drive home Caglianone and tie the game.  

Luke Heyman singled in Kurland and Shelton for a 3-1 lead, setting the stage for Donay. By the time he got to the plate, Heyman was on third, Ashton Wilson who had been hit by a pitch was on second and Dale Thomas was on first after a sharp single to left.  

The first pitch Donay saw was blasted intr the bullpen in right field, a shot that put UF up 7-1.  

“Going up to that at-bat in a big situation right there you've just kind of gotta go in and do something for your team, whether that's put the ball in play or draw a walk or anything there,” Donay said. “I tried to get a swing off early, and obviously a great thing happened.” 

The Gators made it 9-2 in the third when Kurland doubled in Wilson and Donay. Kentucky scored two in the fifth which had the Wildcat faithful sensing a come-from-behind rally was in store, but Donay poured water on their celebration when he led off the bottom half with his second homer of the day to left field, a blast measured at 415 feet. One out later, Caglianone was intentionally walked. He advanced to second on a wild pitch, stole third and came home on a perfectly executed squeeze bunt by Tyler Shelton. Heyman doubled in a run and Wilson blooped a 2-run single to right to complete the carnage.  

The only thing remaining that could light a bigger fire under the Florida faithful, who were already in a celebratory mood, was for Caglianone to do something special. He did. On a 3-2 count he hit a 375-foot homer to right field, a towering blast that was a show of strength. Cags didn’t get all of the pitch. He simply had the muscle to put the ball out of the yard for his 35th homer of the seasons. 

As he headed into the dugout after the homer, Caglianone looked up into the stands where former UF home run king Matt LaPorta tipped his hat in homage. Caglianone’s 75th career home run also lifted him into a tie for 8th place on the NCAA all-time career home run list. What makes this accomplishment so incredible is that Cags has done it in 164 games. All but one of the career home run leaders played in more than 200 games. 

So, the Gator Boys are hot. Hot enough to take down the Aggies tonight? If they succeed they have to come back and do it again tomorrow, but in this season marked by improbability, it’s time to admit anything is possible.  

As surprising as it would be for Florida to make it to the championship series against the winner of Tennessee and Florida State, what this post season should have taught us all is when the Gator Boys are hot, never count them out.

“It's why you come to Florida,” Caglianone said. “You have a great group of guys. You know there's talent top to bottom on the roster, and honestly, like the biggest thing is just playing for each other was kind of our motto and what we've been running with this postseason, despite all the ups and downs of the regular season. None of that matters now. And now it just kind of falls, next game, just leads into that.”