(Photo via Gators baseball team)
So much for a down year.
A season-opening loss to St. John’s set off the alarm bells among Gators baseball fans. The ensuing struggles in midweek games– initially thought to be just a feature of most college baseball teams, and not a malfunction– soon gave way to puzzling losses to foes good and bad alike. Then, as March melted into April, the wheels of the season started coming off.
Florida finished the 2024 season with its worst SEC record under Kevin O’Sullivan, at 13-17. The Gators were swept by archrival FSU for the first time in decades– and two of the losses came by the mercy rule. Only because the Gators were shaken awake at the absolute last possible moment and won their final two games of the regular season against Georgia– had Florida lost either of them, they would have been ineligible for the NCAA Tournament due to not having a winning record– did their season even include a postseason appearance.
And yet.
And yet despite all of that, the Gators dance on to Stage 2 of the NCAA Tournament, unfazed by the havoc that the loser’s bracket of an NCAA Regional wreaks on even the best pitching staffs. That Florida’s pitching situation has been a liability all year long, or that the Gators lost the start of Jac Caglianone– which two months ago would have seemed like instant death in a Regional– did not matter. Nor did the fact that star outfielder Ty Evans is out for the season after slamming into a wall.
For whatever you want to say about this Gators baseball team, they’re two wins away from every team’s goal– the College World Series. It’s a goal that defending national champion LSU has missed out on, as has #5 overall seed Arkansas, #13 overall seed Arizona and #16 overall seed ECU after being bounced from their own respective Regionals.
Florida opened the NCAA Tournament by handling Nebraska’s ace Brett Sears and getting a great showing from freshman Liam Peterson in a 5-2 win. That was, for the most part, expected. Sure, that game will go down in history as “the Ashton Wilson game” after he delivered three doubles and a tape-measure home run, but Florida beating Nebraska was not exactly a shocker, not with the Gators’ #1 strength of schedule and Nebraska beating up on a bad Big Ten conference.
It’s what happened next that will live on in Gators baseball lore forever.
Florida two-way star Jac Caglianone was hammered by Oklahoma State’s high-powered offense, and the Gator bats went dead in an ugly 7-1 loss in the 1-0 game. And to objective observers, that seemed to be game over. For those unfamiliar with the setup, the difference between winning the 1-0 game in a Regional and losing it is monumental: win, and you have two shots to win one game; lose, and you have to win three in a row.
It’s the second year in a row the Gators have been slammed back against the wall like this. Florida survived it last year because the Gators had a much deeper and more proven pitching situation, coming out of the loser’s bracket to crush Texas Tech by a combined score of 13-1 in the two games to advance. This time around, though, nobody thought the Gators had the pitching depth to survive the loser’s bracket.
And indeed, the 1-1 game of the Regional got a little scary. Florida trailed 4-2 early before Caglianone blasted his 30th homer of the year (and the 70th of his career) to put the Gators back on top. Then the Gators had to brave a two-hour rain delay– bringing back memories of the 2022 Regional collapse against Oklahoma following an even longer delay– Even as Florida turned its rematch against Nebraska into a home run derby and opened up a 17-6 lead, the Cornhuskers drew within 17-11 before Florida finally slammed the door shut.
That set the stage for the Regional final against Oklahoma State, with the Gators having to win twice and the Cowboys just needing to win once. Cade Fisher held the Pokes at bay for three innings before getting into trouble in the fourth and giving way to Brandon Neely. Neely did his job, but Florida still trailed 2-1 heading into the sixth.
Colby Shelton fixed that issue. The Alabama transfer launched a three-run missile into the right field bullpen to put Florida up 4-2, and moments later, Luke Heyman added another one by scoring on a wild pitch. That turned a 2-1 deficit into a 5-2 lead in the blink of an eye.
Neely took it from there, going the distance and stranding a pair of runners in scoring position along the way to force a decisive winner-take-all Regional final the following day– a true Round of 32 game if you will. And that was where the 2024 Gators baseball team cemented its legacy as one guided by unlikely heroes.
With a severely depleted bullpen, Florida’s three main options for this final game were: freshman Jake Clemente, who came into the game with a 5.66 ERA in 20.2 innings of work this year; Frank Menendez, a freshman with a 5.14 ERA in 14 innings of work this year; and Fisher Jameson, one of the better relievers on the year with a 4.15 ERA in 51 innings of work in the regular season, but who had already thrown 38 pitches in two previous games in the Regional and was on short rest. That was it, that was all Florida had left.
(Perhaps Liam Peterson could have been thrust into action in an emergency, but on two days’ rest after throwing 96 pitches, that would have been an absolute last resort and only a short-term solution to get the last out or two.)
Florida used all three of those guys. And Kevin O’Sullivan sat back and watched with a smile as the back end of his bullpen, considered to be a liability as recently as six weeks ago, mowed down the Cowboys’ powerful lineup inning after inning. Pitching mostly to soft contact for easy groundouts and flyouts, the trio of Clemente, Menendez, and Jameson limited Oklahoma State to just two runs throughout the day.
Meanwhile, Ashton Wilson matched that total with one swing that drove in a pair of teammates, giving the Gators a lead they would not relinquish. Subsequent insurance claims filed by Michael Robertson and Tyler Shelnut made it 4-2, and the Gators would hold that lead to the game’s completion, which Jameson finalized with a strikeout. And as the Gators poured out of the dugout to celebrate, reality sank in.
Now Florida has a date with Clemson next weekend, where Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan got his start. It’s a best two-out-of-three series, with the winner advancing to the College World Series. And thus, the Gators baseball team sits just two wins away from returning to Omaha, where it was left devastated after falling one game short of a national title last year.
That would be some feat given where this team stood a mere three weeks ago.
Had the 2024 Gators baseball team lost any one game that it won throughout the regular season, the team would have missed the postseason and forever been remembered as a failure. And they would have more than earned that distinction.
Cade Fisher’s demotion from the Friday night starter into a reliever, Brandon Neely’s struggles with pitch location, Tyler Shelnut misplaying a fly ball against Kentucky to cost the Gators that series win, Michael Robertson’s failure to get sacrifice bunts down in multiple close losses, Ty Evans’ broken bone, bad at-bats, badly missed pitches, fielding errors, you name it, and it went wrong. Florida lost games by blowout and by heartbreak, and everything in between. The Gators found every possible way to lose games in 2024 that existed, and when it seemed they’d run out of those, they’d invent a few new ways to lose. It was all shaping up to be perhaps the greatest waste of talent in the history of Gator athletics, as Caglianone’s monster season was met with a lack of assistance from his teammates as losses piled up like autumn leaves.
But in the postseason, his teammates stepped up in spades. And that’s why this Gators baseball team won’t be remembered as a failure. Because in a sport where most players are set up to fail– after all, if you fail to reach base seven out of ten times, you’re considered to be an excellent hitter– this Gators baseball team refused to be defined by their failures.
This team is now defined by the emergence of Ashton Wilson, a seldom-used reserve who had two hits on the year before that do-or-die Georgia series, delivering four hits that weekend and then nine more in the five games of the Regional. It’s not defined by his place on the bench for the first three months of the year. Nobody cares anymore, and few people will even remember that in five years.
This team is now defined by the innings that Cade Fisher and Brandon Neely ate up– with the latter giving up a stray hit and zero runs to go along with eleven strikeouts in 5.2 brilliant innings– in the first Regional final game against Oklahoma State. It’s not defined by their struggles to locate pitches for much of the year. Nobody cares anymore, and few people will even remember that in five years.
This team is now defined by the insurance RBI base hit from Michael Robertson and moonshot from Tyler Shelnut in the second Regional final game. It’s not defined by their struggles throughout much of the year. Nobody cares anymore, and few people will even remember that in five years.
This team is now defined by the tag-team pitching performance from Jake Clemente, Frank Menendez, and Fisher Jameson to push Florida across the finish line and into the Super Regionals. It’s not defined by their control issues that either got them pulled from games or kept from entering games to begin with. Nobody cares anymore, and few people will even remember that in five years.
The true mark of a champion is to succeed where you have previously failed. Eventually, if you continue to succeed in areas that you have previously failed in, you will at some point run out of areas in which to fail. And while this Gators baseball team still has a lot of work to do– beating Clemson in the Super Regionals won’t be easy– the fact that Florida even got here is reason enough to never give up on a Kevin O’Sullivan-coached squad until its breathed its last breath.
Isn’t that what the postseason is supposed to be about?
