After getting off to an 8-1 start on the season, Miami baseball’s first real test of the season against the No. 8 Florida Gators has not gone well so far. The ’Canes dropped the first game of the series, 6-2. The second game’s outcome was not that different.
The Hurricanes lost again and could barely make a dent in the hit column for a majority of the contest, which ended in a 6-3 final score. Even worse for the Hurricanes, with the loss, the Gators now lead the all-time series between the two teams, with a 136-135-1 record. The Gators last led the series in 1969, ending a 56-year stretch of being on the lower end of two sides.
As for the game itself, the first five innings were an old-fashioned pitchers duel. Junior Griffin Hugus had a solid outing in his start for UM. In 5.0 innings of work, he struck out 10 Florida hitters while giving up four hits, three walks and two runs.
UF’s starter, the 6-foot-8 left-hander Pierce Coppola, left the game with an injury in the third inning after not allowing a Hurricane hit during his short outing. He was replaced by freshman Aidan King, who got the win after 3.1 innings pitched.
Coppola and King had the Hurricanes’ number in their outings. Combined, they gave up only one hit and no runs.
It felt like the Gators had the Hurricanes’ batters number for most of the game. Miami remained scoreless in the first seven innings and had only two hits in that time frame. Those two hits came from senior Tanner Smith in the fifth inning and junior Todd Hudson in the seventh inning. Their hits, along with a few walks, were the only signs of offense for the ’Canes through seven innings.
As for the Gators, their offense also got off to a slow start, as they were scoreless through three innings, but they found their footing starting in the fourth. The first UF score came in the form of a home run by senior Bobby Boser. The Gators’ offense ramped up two innings later in the sixth, when they scored three runs, including a two-run homer by junior Luke Heyman, to bring their lead to 4-0.
Runs finally started to come for the Hurricanes in the eighth inning off a two-run homer from their slugging sophomore Daniel Cuvet to cut the Gator lead to 4-2. Unfortunately for the ’Canes, the Gators got those two runs back when Hurricanes senior reliever Jackson Cleveland, who was considered to be the team’s closer going into the season, gave up a two-run shot over the fence to Heyman for his second home run of the game to bring UF’s lead back up to 6-2.
While a four-run comeback was unlikely, the Hurricanes still had one more attempt to possibly extend the game for at least another half-inning. Freshman Fabio Peralta gave Miami its first base runner after he singled.
Senior Dorian Gonzalez Jr. brought Peralta in to score off of a single to bring the score to 6-3. However, the comeback ended there, as the final out came in the form of a Cuvet groundout. With a 6-3 final score, King got the win for the Gators, and Hugus suffered the loss for the ’Canes.