Kevin O'Sullivan reveals confidence that Florida will bounce back on the verge of elimination

For the first time in Omaha, Florida has its back against the wall after falling to LSU 4-3 in 11 innings on Saturday night.

Gators head coach Kevin O’Sullivan isn’t too worried about facing elimination heading into Sunday’s College World Series matchup. In fact, it’s the same position Florida was in not that long ago.

“This team has shown fight the entire year,” O’Sullivan said postgame. “We’ve had a situation in Regionals we had to win three in a row, and we were able to do that. We’ll need some other guys to step up in the pen. But we certainly feel confident that they will. We’ve got a bunch of guys that have not even stepped on the mound yet. But they’ll be ready to play tomorrow.”

If Florida didn’t run the consolation gauntlet during the Gainesville Regional, the Gators wouldn’t have been anywhere close to the national championship series. After losing in the semifinals to Texas Tech 5-4 — Florida’s only NCAA Tournament loss before Saturday — and went on to defeat UConn before taking down the Red Raiders twice in two days to advance and subsequently host the Gainesville Super Regional.

From there, they won six consecutive games, including going undefeated in the Super Regional and leading up to the College World Series final. LSU put a halt to that in dramatic fashion in Game 1 after an 11-inning thriller that saw Tigers slugger Cade Beloso knock a solo home run out of the park that went on to be the eventual game-winning run.

Florida wasn’t having an off night, either. The batting efforts helped the Gators cling to a one-run lead heading into the eighth inning and their bullpen was strong, collectively allowing five hits including two home runs and nine combined strikeouts over the last seven innings.

No Gator batter logged more than one hit in the game, and every batter that had more than one at-bat was struck out at least once. If the bats come alive, Florida has been unstoppable this postseason and have piled up a 35-4 record when scoring six runs or more in a single game. If Florida can match that total, look for them to extend this series into Monday.

The first pitch is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET live on ESPN and ESPN+. With their backs against the wall, Florida enters Sunday morning as a slight betting favorite (-120), according to Caesars Sportsbook. The over/under run total is set at 9.5.