GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Florida Gators have been waiting a year for this.
Players and coaches never said it publicly, rarely even mentioned
it privately. But returning to the College World Series was the one
common goal everyone in the program shared, and not solely because it’s
the pinnacle of college baseball.
It had more to do with how close
the Gators got to winning it all last season. Florida lost to South
Carolina in the championship series and spent months thinking about what
could have been. Not making things any easier, the Gators played all
season amid sky-high expectations that came with returning nearly every
starter.
Nonetheless, the Gators are back in Omaha, Neb., with their sights set on winning it all.
“That was the thing that was hard for our team to deal with,” coach
Kevin O’Sullivan said. “It was one of those things that was the big
elephant in the room. Nobody wanted to talk about it. It was kind of
just there. It’s hard to get to Omaha, No. 1, but to add it that you’re
supposed to get there and there’s so many things that can happen in this
game that can keep you from getting to your ultimate destination, it
has not been an easy road.”
The Gators (47-18) secured their third
consecutive trip to Omaha by sweeping North Carolina State in a super
regional. Their reward? Florida opens Saturday against the two-time
defending champion Gamecocks, who have won 21 consecutive games in the
NCAA tournament.
South Carolina’s streak includes 11 in a row in Omaha.
“I was excited,” Florida reliever Greg Larson said. “Another chance to
play them. They’ve had a great run. Just kind of thinking back to last
year, we were going to run into them I felt like sooner or later, so why
not first game in Omaha?”
Florida won three of four games against
South Carolina this season, including the last three meetings. But
recent success will mean little, if anything, when the teams take the
field Saturday.
“Last time’s last time,” designated
hitter/left-handed pitcher Brian Johnson said. “Doesn’t matter what you
did last time. Doesn’t matter if you scored 10 or you didn’t score any.”
Florida has a good team, and everyone knows it.
Catcher
Mike Zunino is a finalist for the Golden Spikes Award, given annually
to the nation’s best amateur player, and anchors a deep and versatile
lineup that features five players selected in the first nine rounds of
last week’s Major League Baseball draft. Florida also had four pitchers
drafted, including ace Hudson Randall and the team’s top three
relievers: Larson, lefty Steven Rodriguez and closer Austin Maddox.
All that talent was evident when the Gators started the season 20-1.
Nonetheless,
Florida endured ups and downs, injury and adversity, and a late-season
hitting slump in which the Gators lost eight of 17 games down the
stretch.
O’Sullivan expected to deal with those kinds of things.
The biggest challenge was trying to keep players focused and hungry
during it all.
“It is challenging,” O’Sullivan said. “It’s one
thing to be the underdog and not have expectations, but it’s another
when there are expectations. It’s just not the external people. You in
turn start putting pressure on yourself and you feel the pressure of
trying to get your team back to where they should be, supposedly.
“And then you get the draft as well. I mean, that’s the other part of
it, and it’s right there at the end of the season. There’s been a lot.”
Now,
though, the most meaningful games are here. And how the Gators respond
could make everything that happened in the last year an afterthought
forever.
“I think we’re in a spot right now where everything’s
kind of behind us and we’re just taking it one game at a time,” Larson
said.
