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Florida right-handed pitcher Jackson Barberi (22) pitches Sunday against Kennesaw State at Condron Family Park. [Delia Rose Sauer\/WRUF]\nPitchers Showed Mixed Signs<\/p>\n
Bring out the broomsticks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
No. 10 Florida baseball (7-1) secured another series win, sending Kennesaw State (3-3) home empty-handed. While Florida beating the Owls was expected, the Gators are showing positive signs in their batting habits. Not to mention, Friday starter Liam Peterson regained his lost ground after being shelled against UAB, striking out 12 hitters in his start.<\/p>\n
Still, there\u2019s a simmering issue for this team that its record might not yet show: the pitchers and their command. Sunday starter Cooper Walls gave up four earned runs and five hits in his appearance. And while Peterson figures out how to attack the Owls, his start against UAB can\u2019t be washed away just yet.<\/p>\n
Here are the biggest takeaways from the Kennesaw State series as Florida looks toward its first ranked series against No. 17 Miami this weekend.<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s Firepower<\/p>\n
The Gators should be mercy-ruling mid-major Division I schools. Their wins aren\u2019t anything surprising. The more important positive sign is how Florida extends its at-bats early. The Gators force pitchers to attack the strike zone rather than chasing balls, even when pressure ramps up during two-strike counts.<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s collective patience is rewarded. Florida has outscored its foes 37-7 in the first two innings of games this season. Kyle Jones\u2019 comeback has stood out the most. He collected his sixth multi-hit game on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re playing really good baseball,\u201d coach Kevin O\u2019Sullivan said. \u201cObviously, things are going our way, but it\u2019s really not that hard to see why we\u2019re having success right now. We\u2019re focused at the plate, having really good at-bats.\u201d<\/p>\n
Florida right-handed pitcher Jackson Barberi (22) pitches Sunday against Kennesaw State at Condron Family Park. [Delia Rose Sauer\/WRUF]
\nPitchers Showed Mixed Signs<\/p>\n
On the mound, the biggest week-to-week improvement belongs to Peterson (1-0), who pitched 5 1\/3 innings against the Owls. And Peterson needed to rebound for the Gators to have any shot of success in the SEC. While a game against Kennesaw State isn\u2019t equivalent to one against LSU or Mississippi State, he was able to find his footing. Peterson was one strikeout short of his career high of 12Ks and only allowed two walks.<\/p>\n
His next step will be finding the strike zone consistently, though that might be the summary of his career so far at Florida. He\u2019s not the only one.<\/p>\n
Walls (1-0) struggled to get batters out, and the Owls\u2019 hitters took advantage. Walls, to his credit and detriment, relies on Florida\u2019s defense to get outs. The previous Sunday against UAB, Florida recorded five force-outs and six ground-outs \u2014 both more than Walls\u2019 four strikeouts. This weekend was no different, but the wind pulled some balls down the first baseline during Wall\u2019s four-inning appearance<\/a>, making easy outs harder to come by.<\/p>\n Florida\u2019s bullpen added to the pain Sunday. Five relievers pitched in the last five innings<\/a>, walking six. In the seven games prior, Gators pitchers only walked six batters.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe games that we\u2019ve had success in so far, we\u2019ve gotten out to an early lead,\u201d reliever Jake Barberi said Sunday. \u201cWasn\u2019t like that tonight. Kind of got punched in the mouth a little bit early there \u2026 so just fighting back and then adding on like that, it was big for us. And it was good to handle that adversity the way we did.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Both No. 21 Florida State (4-2) and Miami (9-0) have played similar schedules to Florida and have mostly found success.\u00a0<\/p>\n Before losing to Nebraska on Sunday, FSU beat all its unranked opponents with a lineup that rakes. However, a 10-1 beating by the Cornhuskers is concerning. The Seminoles only collected two hits, striking out 14 times. They went 0-for-8 in at-bats with runners in scoring position, despite entering the weekend No. 23 nationally in batting average.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But before facing FSU in early March, Florida will need to find a way to snap the Hurricanes\u2019 win streak this weekend. Miami will be the first ranked team Florida has faced, and outfielder Derek Williams is red hot. He\u2019s started in all eight games for the \u2018Canes, batting .538 with a 1.688 OPS. It\u2019s a welcome challenge for the Gators, who need matchups like these to prepare for the conference battles ahead.<\/p>\n \u201cGotta go out there and give your best,\u201d Walls said. \u201cMight get a little chirpy out there, but got to stay all composed and got to ultimately do a job for your team. I think it\u2019ll be good for us.\u201d<\/p>\n The Gators host FIU (6-2) for games Tuesday (6:30 p.m.) and Wednesday (6 p.m.) with coverage on SEC Network+ and ESPN 98.1-FM\/850-AM WRUF.<\/p>\n Category: College Baseball<\/a>, Feature Sports News<\/a>, Gator Sports<\/a>, Gators Baseball<\/a>, SEC<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bring out the broomsticks.\u00a0 No. 10 Florida baseball (7-1) secured another series win, sending Kennesaw State (3-3) home…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[40891,28,27731,2530,30,29,19669,5547,20074,78961],"class_list":{"0":"post-165844","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-cooper-walls","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-baseball","11":"tag-florida-gators","12":"tag-florida-headlines","13":"tag-florida-news","14":"tag-gators-baseball","15":"tag-kevin-osullivan","16":"tag-liam-peterson","17":"tag-uf-baseball"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/022226-UF-Baseball-Kennesaw-State-DRS-07-300x200.jpg\")
Florida right-handed pitcher Cooper Walls (38) launches the ball Sunday against Kennesaw State at Condron Family Ballpark. [Delia Rose Sauer\/WRUF]
\nIn-state Ranked Rivals<\/p>\n