Rivals Florida and Miami Open Weekend Series at The Swamp Tonight

Gator baseball looks to overcome its five game losing streak as it takes on Miami this weekend at McKethan Stadium. Florida is 3-6 and 21st ranked Miami is 9-0.

Florida is coming off of a 7-6 loss to North Florida on Tuesday, while Miami is undefeated and took mid-week victories over St. Thomas on Tuesday and Barry on Wednesday.

Under Gator coach Kevin O’Sullivan, the Gators have never dropped back to back home series.  Despite this season’s early setbacks, O’Sullivan knows they still have a lot to work for.

Although Florida has a losing streak, the Gators have beaten Miami in their last 11 meetings on the diamond. The Hurricanes began last year’s series with the Gators undefeated, but the Gators quickly took that away with a big sweep down in Coral Gables.  The Gators hit .365 over the three games with eight doubles and five homers, out-scoring the Hurricanes by a 28-15 margin.

Gator right-hander Johnny Magliozzi recorded his first career victory in the third game against Miami last year, while Gator left-hander Daniel Gibson  notched his first career save with a game-ending strikeout.

After struggles in Tuesday’s loss to UNF, Magliozzi called a pitcher’s meeting to get the pitching staff on the same page. Junior right-hander Jonathon Crawford said the meeting was in hopes to get them to step up their game.

Miami has a pitching staff that has been on a solid weekend rotation this season consisting of Chris Diaz on Friday, Javi Salas on Saturday and Andrew Suarez on Sunday. Hurricane head coach Jim Morris is very impressed with his pitchers.

The Hurricanes have true freshman David Thompson hitting in the cleanup spot in their lineup since the first game this season and he’s produced six doubles, a homer, and driven in 14 runs with a stellar on base percentage of .371.

The Gator’s tentative lineup is as follows:

You can catch all the action of tonight’s game on Country 103-7 The Gator beginning at 6:55pm.