Having claimed four of its past
five outings, No. 1 Florida (29-8/9-6 SEC) hosts Eastern Division rival Georgia
(23-15/7-8 SEC) in its sixth of 10 league series at McKethan Stadium. The teams
met five times last season, with the Gators taking two of the three meetings in
Athens before splitting a pair of meetings at the SEC Tournament in Hoover,
Ala. The Bulldogs stayed alive at the double-elimination event with a 4-3
triumph and UF responded with a 3-2 win to reach the championship round, where
it blanked Vanderbilt, 5-0.
Game times this weekend are at 7 p.m. both Friday and Saturday (each
carried on CSS) and at 3 p.m. on Sunday (ESPN2). Although CSS is not available locally,
these two games will air live in the Gainesville/Ocala market on Cox Channel 199.
To view this channel, customers will need to have a Cox-provided digital
receiver but does not need the Sports Tier of programming. It will be made
available through the Cox TV Starter (lowest level of TV programming). Brad Wilkerson,
who will be the Gators’ first-ever inductee into the National College Baseball
Hall of Fame this summer, will also be in Gainesville this weekend.
Sophomore
right-hander Jonathon Crawford (Okeechobee, Fla.) (4-1, 4.05) will start
Friday’s series opener against Georgia redshirt sophomore left-hander Alex Wood
(5-1, 2.61), junior left-hander Brian Johnson (Cocoa Beach, Fla.) (5-1,
3.88) will oppose Bulldog senior righty Michael Palazzone (1-5, 5.81) on
Saturday and junior right-hander Hudson Randall (Atlanta, Ga.) (3-1,
3.56) will start Sunday’s finale against a UGA pitcher to be announced.
At the midway point of the SEC schedule, Florida is 9-6 and is two
games behind co-leaders Kentucky and LSU, who are each 11-4. So far in league
play, the Gators have swept Vanderbilt and took two of three outings at No. 6
South Carolina before dropping consecutive series to No. 16 Ole Miss and No. 7
LSU. UF got back on the winning track by claiming last Sunday’s decisive game
three at Tennessee. Georgia is 7-8 following series against Tennessee (W, W,
L), Vanderbilt (W, L, L), No. 10 Kentucky (W, L, L), No. 13 Arkansas (W, L, L)
and No. 18 Ole Miss (W, W, L).
