Florida Gators beat FAU turn attention to No. 3 Tennessee Volunteers

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Florida Gators didn’t make it easy late but were able to hold on to a 10-8 win over the FAU Owls on Tuesday night.

Florida scored in five different innings on Tuesday night. Second baseman Cade Kurland (1-for-4) and Ty Evans (2-for-4) homered in the victory, with Kurland driving in two and Evans accounting for a team-high three RBI. Freshman Hayden Yost drew a third-straight start and impressed once again, reaching base four times while going 2-for-3 with a double and game-high three runs scored. Catcher Brody Donay (2-for-3) chipped in two RBI and one double.

Players of the Game

Ty Evans: 2-4 HR, 3 RBI
Brody Donay: 2-3, 2 RBI
Jake Clemente: 1.2 IP, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K
Hayden Yost: 2-for-3, 2B, BB, HBP, 3 R

Notes

• Tuesday’s official attendance was 4,970.
• Florida posted its 13th comeback win of the season.
• Caglianone extended his on-base streak to 30 games and hitting streak to 23 in a row.
  • Caglianone has hit safely in 42 of 44 games while reaching safely in all but one contest.
• Yost reached base four times while going 2-for-3 with a double in his third-straight start.
• Evans added to his career high with his 12th homer of the campaign.
• Kurland hit his ninth home run of the season.
• Over the last 11 games, the Florida offense has scored 82 runs on 109 hits.
  • That features 79 runs on 103 hits in the team’s last 85 offensive half-innings.
• The Gators are 52-16 at home since the start of last season despite a 15-9 record at Condron Family Ballpark in 2024.
• Florida is now 27-10 all-time vs. FAU including a 21-8 mark in Gainesville.
  • The Gators are 14-5 against the Owls under head coach Kevin O’Sullivan (11-5 at home).
  • Florida has won 14 of the last 18 meetings since 2010.
  • The Gators have won three-straight games in the series since 2023.

Quotes

FROM HEAD COACH KEVIN O’SULLIVAN
On his thoughts on the game…
“Not surprised the way it ended there the way the season has gone, but this time of the year, wins are extremely important. Even though we made it interesting at the end, there were some positive things. We swung the bat good, think we only struck out five or six times, offensively. I thought Jake Clemente came in and threw the ball extremely well again, so hopefully he’s going to be able to help us down the stretch here. I thought [Frank Menendez] threw the ball good, and Ty keeps doing his thing at the top of the order. Had a chance to catch Brody tonight and play Luke again at first and get Jac just the DH because it’s a short week. So there’s some positives, but obviously we made the one error at first after we scored three and that kind of led to some lead down runs and made a couple base-running mistakes again…”

On mixing up the offensive strategy…
“You see this at the big league level, too, guys don’t sacrifice the entire year and then all of a sudden at crunch time you start seeing a little bit more. We talked about that at the end, too. We had a three-run lead going into the bottom of the eighth, just to really manufacture one more run to have a four-run lead makes all the difference in the world. Your opponent, they get bases loaded like they did, one guy runs into a ball, you got a tie ballgame instead of losing the lead. And we’re home, we still get the last at-bat but that last run was really important for us.”

On getting left field figured out with Yost…
“I was asked that on the radio, too. You just don’t know when the light is going to go on for freshmen. It went on for Luke McNeillie after the A&M series. And then Liam Peterson threw good, I thought, at LSU and started building a little more confidence as he went along and I thought the best he threw was at Vandy. And you’re starting to see Frank Menendez figure some things out and be able to hold it together and give us a valuable option left-handed-wise. And then Hayden, in all fairness to him, he hasn’t had a tremendous amount of opportunities the first half of the year but now he’s making the most of them and he’s a good player. I think the next thing, we’ll see how he handles left-on-left situations and really, really start to get the bunt game going and the ability to steal bases. He’s had a great couple weeks.”

What’s next for the Florida Gators

The Florida Gators will host the No. 3 Tennessee Volunteers on Thursday night. ESPN2 will broadcast the game with first pitch scheduled for 7:00 pm. Game two is scheduled for Friday at 6:30 pm and the series finale is slated for Saturday at 6:30 pm.