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The No. 3 Florida Gators baseball team will be on the road in Knoxville to face the No. 11 Tennessee Vols over the weekend. The three-game series will begin Thursday with first pitch set for 8 p.m. and continue through Saturday.
Throwback
The Gators and the Vols met four times last season. The Vols topped the Gators in Gainesville prior to knocking Florida out of the SEC Tournament Championship Game 8-5. Tennessee and Florida remain the only two teams to reach the SEC Tournament Semifinals in back to back seasons. The Vols have claimed nine of the last 10 against Florida’s hefty 154-94 lead in the all-time series. The Gators haven’t traveled to Knoxville since April 2021 when the Vols took two out of three matchups to win the series.
Head coach Kevin O’Sullivan leads the Florida team 24-20 on the series against the Vols, including 12-9 on the road.
Gators Lately
Florida is coming off of an 8-4 win over Bethune-Cookman Tuesday. Mentionable player BT Riopelle went yard for the fifth time this season during the mid-week win. Prior to that victory, the Gators took a three-game series against the Auburn Tigers. That marked the team’s third-straight SEC series win to open conference play.
Series win ✅
3-0 in SEC series ✅
7-0 in all series ✅#GoGators pic.twitter.com/Ms2anQ2T6F— Florida Gators Baseball (@GatorsBB) April 2, 2023
Numbers
The Gators are 25-5 and 7-2 in the SEC. The team is 18-3 on weekend series this year, taking four of a potential seven. Florida has yet to lose a game away from Condron Family Ballpark this season. Marking an impressive 6-0 on the road, the team has outscores those opponents 61-33. Worth noting is UF has scored in double digits and racked up double digit hits in 15 of 30 matchups.
Offensively, the Gators have the top slugging percentage of .609 in all of college baseball. The team is second in hits with 344, second in runs with 298 and second in home runs with 65. Florida is also third and fourth in triples and batting average, marking 17 and .330, respectively. The Gators hold the most number of bases wit 634. The next closest team to that is South Carolina with 579.
The Weekend for the Gators
The Gators stayed at No. 3 in the D1 Top-25 this week. The team ranks No. 2 nationally at Baseball America, Perfect Game and the NCBWA.
📍 Knoxville, Tenn.
🏟️ Lindsey Nelson Stadium#GoGators pic.twitter.com/uOFZ5HgTjf— Florida Gators Baseball (@GatorsBB) April 6, 2023
Catch the Gators and Vols compete for a series title Thursday through Saturday. Game 1 is set for 8 p.m., game 2 is set for 7 p.m. and game 3 is set for 2 p.m.
