Florida Gators power past Miami Hurricanes in series opener
CORAL GABLES, Fla. — The Gators wasted little time getting on the board and poured it on the Miami Hurricanes late in a 7-3 win at Mark Light Stadium.
Miami led off the fifth inning with a hit but Ryan Slater shut down the Miami bats. Slater threw 3.1 innings of no-hit baseball while striking out four. The Gators (7-2) wasted no time by plating one run on the Hurricanes (5-4) in the top of the first. Back in the lineup at designated hitter, Kurland smacked a leadoff single to left, then advanced to second on a wild pitch. Heyman then barreled a ball to shortstop Antonio Jimenez, which was misplayed for an error allowing Kurland to race home for the first run of the ballgame
The two teams traded zeros in the second before Miami grabbed the lead in the third. With two outs and a man on third, Jason Torres deposited a 3-0 offering over the right field fall to give the Canes a 2-1 edge.
Florida provided an immediate answer with two runs in the top of the fourth to regain the lead. Ty Evans singled and moved to third on a Tyler Shelnut double, then slid past catcher Carlos Perez for the tying run on a fielder’s choice to first by Armando Albert. Michael Robertson put the Gators ahead for good with a two-out, RBI single to shortstop to bring home Shelnut and make it 3-2.
Florida tacked runs on in the fifth with a Luke Heyman homer and two more in the seventh inning when Cade Kurland and Jac Caglianone hit back-to-back home runs.
Players of the Game
Cade Fisher: The true sophomore has his best outing of the early campaign. He threw 4.2 innings and struck out five while allowing three runs.
Ryan Slater: Taking over for Fisher, Slater was unhittable. The right-hander threw
Cade Kurland: The second baseman missed four games with a bone bruise in his hand but announced his return in a big way. Kurland finished the night 3-5 with a home run and two RBI as the designated hitter.
Armando Albert: Just check out this play.
Notes:
- Friday night’s official attendance was a sellout crowd of 3,555 fans.
- Florida held Miami to a season-low seven hits, which tied the Hurricanes’ season low.
- Florida rose to 133-134-1 all-time vs. Miami, moving within one win of tying the series.
- The Gators are 52-81 in the series on the road.
- The Gators improved to 40-17 vs. the Hurricanes featuring a 17-8 away mark under head coach Kevin O’Sullivan.
- Florida is 21-7 against Miami across the last 28 meetings.
- Heyman and Caglianone launched their third homers of the season to tie them with Shelnut and Shelton for the team lead.
- Kurland and Caglianone hit back-to-back home runs with one out in the seventh inning, signifying Florida’s first back-to-back homers since Wyatt Langford and Caglianone accomplished the feat at the College World Series vs. LSU on June 25, 2023.
- Across his last two starts, Fisher has struck out 15 batters while walking zero across 9 2/3 innings.
- Slater retired the final 10 batters he faced to earn his first win of the season on 3 1/3 scoreless frames.
- Florida is 35-11 in weekend series since 2023 and 44-14 across the team’s previous 20 series.
- Dating back to last season, Florida is 29-5 in regular season non-conference games and has won 20 of its last 22 such contests.
Mark Light Milkshake Review
Mitch Freedman has run a milkshake stand at Miami home games for nearly 40 years. The shakes have been around since 1986 and have come in more than 40 different flavors — not including the infamous ones created in honor of opponents. This weekend featured a Vanilla shake with “Swamp Sauce” and fried Gator bites.
Adam Lichtenstein, the Miami Hurricanes beat writer for the Sun Sentinel, tried the shake and offered this review.
“The primary flavor is vanilla, which makes sense because the base of the shake is vanilla. It’s hard to say what the secret “Swamp sauce” is, but it tastes like it adds a sweetness. The actual pieces of gator in the shake vary in size. The add a pleasant savory flavor, saltiness and a little bit of spice. The Mark Light Shake stand has done some wild milkshakes in the past, including a lobster shake for the University of Maine in last year’s Coral Gables regional and an everything bagel shake — complete with salmon — when Long Island came to South Florida earlier this season. This concoction is not as out there, palate-wise, and is definitely enjoyable.”
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Quotes:
On the win and getting Cade Kurland back
“Yeah he had a really good night at the plate. It wasn’t really a decision that we made until after batting practice, just to make sure he was alright. We don’t want to put him in the lineup if he doesn’t feel like he can go. Three hits. Jac behind him with three hits. They certainly had really good nights at the plate.”
On Caglianone’s defense and beating out an infield single
“Yeah, I mentioned that to the team at the end of the game. He gave a really good effort down the line and obviously beat out the throw from the shortstop or the third baseman. It was really important for us to get that fourth run because if anything crazy happens the last inning, one swing would tie it and not put them ahead. That was a big run for us in the ninth.”
On Cade Fisher
“Yeah, I still think he’s pitching behind a little bit too much, to be honest with you. I mean, I think he threw about 70 pitches and 40 strikes. He kind of lost feel for his slider about halfway through his outing. The 3-0 count, I kind of had an idea they might cut him loose on the 3-0 count and give him a green light and they certainly did. Trying to go fastball in there and left it out over the plate. Credit Torres for putting a good swing on it. Ryan Slater came in and did an outstanding job and held it together for three and a third. It was good. It was a good night for us all the way around.”
On the defense, especially Armando Albert saving a run up the middle
“That was a huge play to end the inning. Long is a really, really, plus-plus runner, too. Not only did he get to the ball but he had a clean exchange and made an accurate throw. It was a really good play.”
On how the team handled the environment
“The fourth inning was a little bit of a debacle. We have first and third and we put a safety bunt on, meaning if it’s a strike just put it down and we’ve been talking about having to be able to do that. We pull the bat back, first strike. Took strike two and then end up striking out in that situation. Those are things that we’re going to have to improve on because every run matters and that was just one more run that we could have tacked on. Overall, it was a good night for us. The infield was playing really quick, too. We took some extra groundballs at practice (On Thursday night) to kind of get adjusted to it. We did just enough on the mound and we pitched with a lot of traffic early on too. We made some big pitches when we needed to. I just hope that our pitchers understand, we’ve made three errors now in our first nine games, which is pretty good. I know we only walked one guy tonight but we threw a lot of pitches, it felt like.”
What’s next for the Gators?
Florida will send Liam Peterson (1-0, 0.00 ERA) to the mound on Saturday at 4:00 pm looking to take the series over Miami. The Hurricanes will send lefty Rafe Schlesinger (1-0, 0.82 ERA). The Gators have won four-straight series in Coral Gables against the Hurricanes, posting a 9-3 record with their last series loss coming in 2014. Going beyond that, Florida is 6-1 in the last seven series at Miami, going 15-6 since 2010. The lone series loss occurred in 2014 (L 4-6, L 2-5, W 6-4).
