{"id":166835,"date":"2026-02-24T11:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T11:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/166835\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T11:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T11:54:10","slug":"florida-baseball-welcomes-fiu-for-two-game-series-wruf-98-1-fm-850-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/166835\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Baseball Welcomes FIU for Two-Game Series – WRUF 98.1 FM | 850 AM"},"content":{"rendered":"

The wins keep rolling in for Florida baseball. The Gators rounded out the windy weekend with a three-game series sweep against Kennesaw<\/a> State at Condron Family Ballpark, an effort that helped them climb to No. 10 in the D1 Baseball rankings released Monday.<\/p>\n

The Gators (7-1) will now host a two-game home series against FIU (6-2) on Tuesday, eying their ninth straight series win. Tuesday\u2019s game is set for a 6:30 p.m. start and Wednesday\u2019s is at 6 p.m. with coverage on SEC Network+ and ESPN 98.1-FM\/850-AM WRUF.<\/p>\n

Redshirt sophomore Kyle Jones, the Gators\u2019 leadoff batter, has posted a .500 batting average after averaging .636 against Kennesaw. Freshman Cash Strayer and sophomore Brendan Lawson are not far behind with .423 and .417 averages, respectively.<\/p>\n

FIU is coming off a four-game series win against Holy Cross. Power hitter Luca Reyes knocked a three-run homer in the second inning and walked off the game with a grand slam in Game 2 of the series.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Panthers have burned through 17 pitchers this season with no clear ace. Junior Jordan Vargas spent the most time on the mound with 8.2 innings pitched and a 9.35 earned-run average over three games.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the first meeting between the state teams in 28 years. This series allows Florida to reset after a tumultuous visit from Kennesaw State (3-3).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Florida starting pitchers Liam Peterson<\/a> and Aiden King opened strong on the mound for the Gators in the first two games last weekend. Peterson pitched 5 1\/3 innings in the series opener, allowing only one hit and no runs. King kept this energy<\/a> going into Saturday\u2019s game, claiming his spot on the hill for six of the seven shutout innings, striking out five.<\/p>\n

Sunday, however, was a different ballgame.<\/p>\n

\u00a0With sickness swamping the Gators, Florida struggled on the mound. The team used six pitchers in the series finale.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sophomore Jackson Barberi entered in the fourth after running a 101-degree fever throughout the previous three days. He pitched 2 1\/3 innings for Florida, striking out three and allowing two hits. Barberi earned his first win of the season.<\/p>\n

The Gators were down 3-0 after the rocky first inning. Florida scored in every inning after the first and fought for the sweep.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood teams figure out a way to win, even when you don\u2019t play as well as you should,\u201d UF coach Kevin O\u2019Sullivan said.<\/p>\n

Given the state of Florida\u2019s bullpen, O\u2019Sullivan was not shy about the fact Florida will probably burn through four-to-five relievers in each of the coming FIU games.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got some other guys that have not thrown yet, and you\u2019ll see them on Tuesday and Wednesday,\u201d O\u2019Sullivan said. \u201c[We will] Hopefully have everybody back for Miami.\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing is on the mind for the Gators as they head into the next series.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to win everything,\u201d pitcher Cooper Walls said.<\/p>\n

Category: Baseball<\/a>, Feature Sports News<\/a>, Gator Sports<\/a>, Gators Baseball<\/a>, SEC<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The wins keep rolling in for Florida baseball. The Gators rounded out the windy weekend with a three-game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[73262,19666,4679,28,27731,30,29,79277,5547,19670,20074,79278],"class_list":{"0":"post-166835","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-aiden-king","9":"tag-condron-family-ballpark","10":"tag-fiu-panthers","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-florida-baseball","13":"tag-florida-headlines","14":"tag-florida-news","15":"tag-jordan-vargas","16":"tag-kevin-osullivan","17":"tag-kyle-jones","18":"tag-liam-peterson","19":"tag-luca-reyes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166835","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=166835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}