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No. 2 Tennessee took Game 1 against No. 7 Florida 5-3 on Friday night in front of a record crowd at Lindsey Nelson Stadium in Knoxville. This one lived up to the billing; Star pitching, middle-inning rallies and a little bit of controversy.
The matchup between right-hander Liam Peterson and lefty Liam Doyle were electric and did a great job at shutting down the opposition.
Doyle came out firing. His fastball touched as high as 97 mph and sometimes had Florida (16-3, 0-1 SEC) hitters looking overwhelmed. He ran into some trouble in the third, but got out of it unscathed. The only run he gave up was in the fourth when he allowed a solo home run. But when Florida was threatening again, he got out of the inning on a smooth double play.
Doyle finished the night going 4 2/3 innings, giving up three hits, one run, two walks and six strikeouts on 105 pitches.
On the other hand, Peterson (4-1) did a good job making his first start on the road. Like his counterpart, he was able to challenge the zone and make Tennessee (18-0, 1-0) earn everything. Peterson gave up one run in the second inning, but minimized the damage to just that. Unfortunately, that was not the case in the fifth. The Volunteers landed the knockout blow on Peterson after a Hunter Ensley two-run double. Peterson was pulled after that at-bat.
Peterson finished going four innings, four runs, six hits, three walks and eight strikeouts.
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Tennessee jumped on the board first off a Jay Abernathy RBI single that brought Manny Marin in the second to make it 1-0. Florida was able to tie it at 1-all off a Blake Cyr moonshot in the fourth inning. Florida threatened later in the inning with two on and one out, but grounded into an inning ending double play.
Vols Big Fifth Inning
Peterson was rolling until the fifth inning. The inning started with a walk and back-to-back singles to load the bases. Ensley then delivered a two-run double to make it 3-1. After not recording a single out in the fifth, Peterson was yanked.
Luke McNeillie came in relief and cleaned up the mess some, striking out the first two hitters he saw. But a wild pitch brought in Ensley to make it 4-1 before the Gators got out of the inning.
Interference Call Cuts Gators Rally Short
After taking the Volunteers’ best shot in the bottom of the fifth, the Gators responded in the sixth. The Gators had hit three straight singles to load the bases. Brody Donay drove one right back up the middle to bring two into score and cut the UT lead to 4-3.
Following a Luke Heyman walk, Tennessee brought in flamethrower righty Nate Snead to sort out the mess. His first batter was Landon Stripling, who hit a ball right back up the middle to second baseman Gavin Kilen, who appeared to only get the one out at second. It seemed Florida had tied the game at 4-4.
But an interference call made from second base umpire Javerro January ruled Heyman was impeding Kilen’s path to make a play. Thus calling him and Stripling out, resulting in an inning ending double play.
Tennessee tacked on a big insurance run to make it 5-3 in the sixth.
Snead Slams Door
After Snead got out of the sixth, he put this game on lockdown. In his 3 2/3 innings pitched, Snead faced 12 batters, gave up two hits and struck out four. He finished the game by retiring the final six hitters in order and painted 99 mph on the inner half to clinch the win.
Up Next
Florida looks to bounce back Saturday at 3:30 p.m. You watch on the SEC Network and listen live at ESPN 98.1-FM/850-AM WRUF and WJXL 1010-AM. The game was moved up to a 3:30 p.m. start on SEC Network+ because of the threat of inclement weather later Saturday. The game will pick up on SEC Network at about 4 p.m.
