A historic Florida baseball season ends but a legacy will remain

OMAHA, Neb. — The game had long been out of reach. Still, when the last out was recorded and the LSU Tigers stormed the field, the Florida baseball team was stuck. They watched as gold confetti shot from cannons and LSU stormed over the dugout railing. Unable to move because moving even an inch from where they stood in the dugout was one inch closer to the end.

A heavy silence was only broken by sniffles as a new reality set in. Since October the 27 student-athletes, nine managers, coaches, and trainers had worked toward a goal. Over the last eight months, they spent more time together than they did with their families. A team becomes your family. Watching LSU celebrate after the 27th out on Monday night meant their family was breaking up.

They’ll have Monday night together. The team will fly back to Gainesville on Tuesday but their lives will soon take separate paths.

Senior catcher BT Riopelle played his last baseball game on Monday night.

The power-hitting left-handed catcher could have been drafted after the 2022 season. He had just played the best baseball of his life against the toughest competition college baseball has to offer. He chose to come back for the opportunity to play with the group of guys he’d come to call his brothers.

“It was the easiest decision in my life to come back here last year,” Riopelle said losing a battle to hold back tears. “I’m forever indebted to this program, coaches, and players. It was seriously a no-brainer. It’s been the best years of my life and very grateful.”

Riopelle was the last Florida baseball player out of the locker room. Most will come back next year or play baseball professionally. Riopelle played his final competitive baseball game Monday night at the College World Series.

He walked out of a baseball stadium as a player for the last time and into the arms of his father, Duane. They started this baseball journey together on dirt fields in Georgia and at this moment they would end that baseball journey the way they started it — together.

Florida baseball’s historic season

There’s no chance for perspective in this moment for the people inside the program. The fog of disappointment is too thick to see through and look at what they accomplished in 2023.

“Just to be here and compete for a national championship, and I wouldn’t choose anybody else to go to war with,” Josh Rivera said after the game. “They’re my brothers. It’s a tough pill to swallow.”

But they didn’t win the last game. As difficult a task as it is to even reach the College World Series, that is lost on the red-eyed men filing into a bus outside of the stadium.

In 109 years of playing baseball, no team at the Univerity of Florida has ever won more baseball games than the 2023 Florida Gators. Florida pitchers struck out 725 batters — another school record.

Jac Caglianone set the school record for home runs in a single season over a month ago. He broke the National Division I BBCOR era single record in Omaha with his 33rd. Florida swatted a program-record 145 home runs this season, blowing the previous record of 132 set in 1998

This list of accolades continues. The 2023 Florida Gators will go down as one of the best teams to ever play baseball at the University of Florida. They’ll come back for alumni games. Their team will be honored as SEC Champions at Condron Family Ballpark. They cemented their legacy. They left a standard for what should be expected that, while they didn’t end the season hoisting a trophy, should be commended.

“I think one of the things I’m most proud about is I think this program is back to where it needs to be, not only competing for championships, but it’s made up of great people,” Riopelle said. “It’s made up of family men. It’s made up of people that truly care about each other and play for something bigger than themselves. Number one, being Jesus Christ, then number two being the Florida Gators. Three is the name on the back.

“I think everybody on this team has bought into that. And anybody else that comes into this program now, I think they’re going to have a pretty good understanding of what they need to play for the they want to wear the F on the chest.”