’Noles, Gators clawed way into title rounds
Despite the preseason hype and the history of success, Florida State and Florida didn’t look like locks to reach the College World Series a month before their respective conference tournaments.
Thanks to injuries and inconsistent play, the Seminoles were on the bubble to even make the NCAA Tournament.
The Gators relied on formidable pitching to post a winning record, but it was clear the team lacked firepower at the plate sure to cause headaches in the postseason.
Despite their flaws, Florida and Florida State clawed their way to the CWS.
FSU will face off with national No. 4 seed LSU at 8 p.m. Saturday in Omaha. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.
No. 3 seed UF will face No. 6 seed TCU at 7 p.m. Sunday. The contest will air on ESPN2.
If the rivals extend their remarkable late-season surges under extreme pressure, they could potentially face off for a championship.
But first, there is work to do thisweekend on college baseball’s biggest stage.
“This is what it’s all about,” veteran coach Mike Martin said during a press conference Friday. “You start working in August, and you get here, and, sure, it’s something thatwe all dream about. I don’t give a flip how many times these guys have been out here. It still feels new, and it’s the result of a lot of hardwork by their staff, by their players, and no matter what happens out here, you can never take that away from all of us.”
Martin made his first CWS appearance in 1980 and is back chasing an elusive national title. After hundreds of games, the veteran coach still was surprised by this year’s adversity.
“The word that we all used is perseverance because you’re going to have some guys go down, you’re going to have some situations where maybe a pitcher struggles. Could be one of your top three, and he can’t seem to find it. That’s whenwe as coaches have to be sure that we don’t get down on them because they’re not getting down on themselves,” he said. “I know you’ll find this hard to believe, butwe had a 19-year-old kid get shingles.
“... We had a guy run to first base, touch first base, and broke his foot. If I hadn’t have been there, I would never have been able to say it because I wouldn’t have believed it myself, but the point I’m trying to make is the guys are the ones that persevered. The coaches did the best they could possibly do to stay out of the way and see what they did with that tough situation.
“And, of course, you lose some ball games, and you go in the clubhouse, and there’s not any of this looking at a guy that maybe made a key error. The key was they stayed together.”
The Gators’ journey hasn’t easy, either.
UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan said during his news conference he was thrilled to be back in Omaha despite the adversity.
The Gators are batting .262 as a team, ranking 205th in the country. They have been forced to rely on elite pitching, strong defense, aggressive base running and players determined to break out of hitting slumps at critical times.
“It’s been a hard year for us. I think we had 18 onerun wins,” he said. “...We only have two seniors on our team. We’ve had to rely on a lot of different people, a lot of different younger players.
“We’ve had to endure, like everybody else, injuries. We lost some prominent players in our lineup throughout the year for two or three weeks at a time, we’ve had three [hamstring] injuries. We’ve had to overcome a ton.
“...We’re a different type of offense this year than we’ve maybe had in years past. We’re more aggressive on the base pads and hit and run a bit more, that type of thing. We just found away to get it done.”