Schwarz leads Gators in rout
Ex-Gardens star goes 4-for-5, gets 5 RBIs against FAMU.
Playing in his first collegiate postseason, Florida freshman JJ Schwarz wasn’t looking to do anything special — just keep seeing the ball as well as he has all season.
The former Palm Beach Gardens standout was 4-for-5 with five RBIs, leading the Gators to a 190 rout of Florida A&M in the NCAA Tournament Gainesville Regional.
Schwarz had two singles, a double and hit his 15th home run. His five RBIs gave him an SEC-leading 65 on the season. The last freshman to lead the SEC in RBIs was LSU’s Todd Walker, who had 76 in 1992.
“I think my timing’s been on the past few days, the past few weeks. My hitting is in a good rhythm,” Schwarz said. “I’m hoping that stretches on through the postseason.”
Leading 1-0 in the third inning, the Gators (45-16) scored five runs on three singles, t wo walks and a sacrifice fly to gain early control.
The Gators had seven batters hit by pitches, a season-high.
Logan Shore gave up t wo hits and struck out t wo in five innings for the Gators. Frank Rubio pitched t wo perfect innings and Shaun Anderson gave up a single hit in two innings to complete the shutout of the Rattlers (23-24).
“When you get more players feeling good about themselves, the club plays better,” Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “We came off of a very, very difficult SEC Tournament and I thought we did what we needed to do.”
Florida advances to face South Florida at 7 tonight.
USF 5, FAU 3: Brandon Sanger was thrown out at the plate in the fourth inning while trying to score the tying run and the Bulls (34- 1) held off the Owls (40- in Gainesville.
“The throw definitely beat him, but I thought (Sanger) slid in underneath,” FAU coach John McCormack said. “They hit the cut, they hit the relay guy, they threw it in. But I thought that Sanger had slid in underneath the tag.”
Asked if the team had squandered multiple opportunities throughout the game, McCormack said, “Without a doubt.”
“But again, I don’t want to sit here and say ‘our offense didn’t do it,’ ” McCormack said. “All too many times we talk about what we didn’t do — let’s praise what they did. I thought (USF pitcher Jimmy Herget) made some big pitches and we didn’t go away quietly.”
FAU will face FAMU at 1 p.m. today in an elimination game.
Florida State 5, Mercer 4 (10): The top-seeded Seminoles (42-19) needed extra innings to top the fourth-seeded Bears (3522) in Tallahassee.
Center fielder Ben DeLuzio opened the bottom of the 10th with a single and moved over on an error and a sacrifice before scoring on Josh Delph’s game-winning single.
The Seminoles advance to meet College of Charleston (44-13) tonight.