![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/041726-UF-Baseball-Auburn-ML-13-300x200.jpg\")
Florida infielder Cade Kurland (4) goes to make a catch Friday against the Auburn Tigers at Condron Family Ballpark. [Matthew Lewis\/WRUF]<\/p>\nNo. 20 Florida baseball\u2019s games are never pretty. It\u2019s a grit-fueled, trench warfare slogfest where the Gators only hope to survive their own defensive inefficiencies and bullpen woes.<\/p>\n
In only its second loss to a ranked opponent this season, Florida dropped Friday\u2019s game at Condron Family Ballpark to No. 13 Auburn, 5-3.<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s pitching looked like it tried to juggle live artillery: uncertain, precarious and ready for a bomb to explode in their hands. Despite starter Liam Peterson holding the Tigers (26-12, 9-8 SEC) to a measly .125 batting with runners in scoring position, he still left the game with a loss ( 1-3).<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel really pleased with how Liam\u2019s been the last two weeks, and he should, too. Obviously, he pitched really well, too. If we pitch like this, we\u2019re going to be OK,\u201d coach Kevin O\u2019Sullivan said.<\/p>\n
Peterson gave up his first run on a homer by right-fielder Ethin Bingaman, but the scoring onslaught didn\u2019t come until the fourth. The second home run, this time by left fielder Mason McMcraine, revitalized the dugout as the Auburn players pounded their hands on the padded dugout fence and sprayed water from their bottles into the air.<\/p>\n
\u201cI make a terrible pitch, supposed to be inside. I threw a middle away, and he made me pay for it,\u201d Peterson said.<\/p>\n
To Peterson\u2019s credit, the Gators (28-12, 10-7) had a chance to leave the inning with the score tied at 2-2. However, third baseman Kolt Myers lost the ball in the setting sun, and the fielding error \u2014 which could\u2019ve been the third out \u2014 extended the inning that ended with Auburn up 4-2.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made a mistake in that three-run inning and couldn\u2019t find a way to overcome that,\u201d O\u2019Sullivan said.<\/p>\n
Florida infielder Cade Kurland (4) goes to make a catch Friday against the Auburn Tigers at Condron Family Ballpark. [Matthew Lewis\/WRUF]<\/p>\n
Then, in the fifth, Peterson worked himself into and out of a bases-loaded jam. By then, O\u2019Sullivan had seen enough, and he pulled the starter. Peterson finished his 97-pitch night with seven hits, one earned run, two walks and five strikeouts. Luke McNeillie took over in the sixth, but he gave up another homer to McMcraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s challenging [to handle the bad luck], but you got to remember, like all the hitters are working their ass off,\u201d McNeillie said.<\/p>\n
If Florida\u2019s arms underwent an artillery barrage, Florida\u2019s main advantage, shortstop Brendan Lawson, looked lost in no man\u2019s land when he stepped into the box. He couldn\u2019t perfect his timing and swung at pitches he should\u2019ve taken. Even in scoring positions, Lawson came up empty-handed. Finally, he hit a single in the seventh and worked a walk in the ninth as the possible tying run.<\/p>\n
Luckily for the sophomore, Florida\u2019s batters combined long balls with manufactured runs to keep the game competitive. After trailing 1-0, the Gators pushed two runs onto the scoreboard in the third off Auburn\u2019s mistakes. Hayden Yost reached first on a wild pitch after striking out. He then advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored on an error by Tigers\u2019 starter Jake Marciano. Myers also reached first on that error and scored on Ethan Surowiec\u2019s RBI single.<\/p>\n
Then, in the fifth with the Gators trailing by two, Florida\u2019s Blake Cyr sent a ball into the opposing bullpen to shrink Auburn\u2019s lead to one run at 4-3. It was Cyr\u2019s second home run of the series and his sixth this season.<\/p>\n
Still, it wasn\u2019t enough to dig Florida out of the foxhole it found itself in. With the bases loaded in the ninth and trailing 5-3, the Gators hit into an unceremonious game-ending double play. Florida now needs to win a rubber-match<\/a> noon game (ESPN2) Saturday to take the series.<\/p>\n \u201cThe good thing about it is we got a chance to win the series tomorrow, and we need Russ[ell Sandefer] to bounce back from his start from last week, and our bullpen\u2019s fresh,\u201d O\u2019Sullivan said.<\/p>\n Category: College Baseball<\/a>, Feature Sports News<\/a>, Gator Sports<\/a>, Gators Baseball<\/a>, SEC<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No. 20 Florida baseball\u2019s games are never pretty. It\u2019s a grit-fueled, trench warfare slogfest where the Gators only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-236493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236493","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=236493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}