Gators Baseball Hoping For More From Peterson, McNeillie As Sophomores

The Florida baseball team asked pitchers Liam Peterson and Luke McNeillie to step up on the field in big moments throughout the 2024 season as freshmen. 

Now as they enter their second season at UF, Peterson and McNeillie are being tasked with taking bigger roles in a new way – as leaders.

Peterson will take the mound as Florida’s Opening Day starter Friday against Air Force. McNeillie, meanwhile, will have a key role in the Gators’ bullpen in 2025. They’re also being counted on to lead what is a young, but talented Florida pitching staff.

“For them being sophomores and then being put in a position of being a leader, you would think that would be technically your juniors or seniors,” Florida pitching coach David Kopp said. “But they are the returners who are considered older in this program.”

Both pitchers experienced highs and lows last year, both on the mound and as students adjusting to college. They have embraced meeting the new crop of freshmen and helping them with the transitions that they are facing. 

With the departure of upperclassmen like Jac Caglianone, Brandon Neely and Fisher Jameson, who were drafted into professional baseball organizations last summer, the sophomores now need to take on the role of being mentors alongside guys like Ty Evans, Colby Shelton and Pierce Coppola.

“I built a pretty good relationship with kids like Aidan King and Joshua Whritenour and then Felix Ong and Brendan Lawson,” said Peterson, who hails from Palm Harbor. “I think being here over summer helped a lot just to get to know them.”

Peterson and McNeillie are there to help the freshmen and transfers the same way last year’s upperclassmen did for them. Surprisingly, the biggest takeaways they got weren’t necessarily about their physical game. It was the little things off the field. 

Peterson said he learned a lot about staying composed and not acting like an immature high schooler. For McNeillie, it was how to go about being a college baseball player.

“I’d say my biggest takeaway was [from] Fisher Jameson,” McNeillie said. “I was throwing partners with him last year and he just kind of taught me how to go about things here and how the staff likes everything done.”

Luckily for them, this offseason has been easier to navigate because they know what to expect, having done it last year. It’s not an easy transition to go from high school to college, especially playing for a team like the Gators. For the last 17 seasons under coach Kevin O’Sullivan, the Gators have a record of 717-349, have nine College World Series appearances, have won the SEC six times and have one national championship (2017).

“Going from high school to this, where you’re working out five days a week, you’re practicing six,” Peterson said. “It’s definitely something that is an adjustment period your freshman year.”

Not only is this transition physically demanding, but it also adds pressure. They need to focus on the game, but also need to balance being students. One of McNeillie’s biggest challenges that he has overcome was figuring out his time management – including building in time for academics.

“There’s moments in the spring where you’re writing an essay on the plane,” he said. “Now, this year, I’m ahead of my work in everything.”

“I have seen them step up with leadership roles in ways where if a young guy comes off the mound and or if maybe it hasn’t gone the way that that young pitcher wanted his day to go,” Kopp said. “You can kind of see them pull pitchers to the side and talk them through some things.”

Something that helps is the chemistry this team has early in the year. These two seemed to be less stressed because of the familiarity of going into year two with the same program. Working with the newcomers and making them feel comfortable is helping the team prepare for the upcoming season.

“I honestly like the chemistry a lot more this year than I did last year at the same time,” Peterson said. “We’re cracking a lot more jokes and it’s just overall a lot more fun.”

Having fun helps to make everyone feel relaxed, but it also gets everyone comfortable with one another to ask for help.

“I think that’s what really separates us as a team,” Peterson said. “We all bounce ideas off of each other.”

As they take on the role of being a mentor, they still have work to do on their own games. McNeillie said he’s been working with Clemson transfer pitcher Billy Barlow to help each other improve on their pitching mechanics. Barlow is helping McNeillie with his sinker while McNeillie is helping Barlow with his slider.

The good news for McNeillie and Peterson as they head into Year 2, is that they played in a variety of different situations last year. McNeillie has pitched in everything from a midweek game against Jacksonville University to throwing the final two innings in the Super Regionals series-clinching, walk-off win at Clemson. Peterson started in some big moments such as starting against No. 4 Kentucky in the regular season and during the College World Series against Texas A&M.

“Going through the season of last year and having their experience of pitching in this league and pitching in Omaha, pitching in the postseason,” Kopp said. “They obviously have an idea now of what it takes to continue that success.”

“It definitely is something to build off of this year and just knowing that they have trust in me means a lot,” Peterson said.

Trust is an important factor to any team, but especially for these two because Kopp doesn’t see their roles changing much, which means they will be spending a lot of time on the mound in key situations.

“I think both of them are going to have to pitch significant innings and leverage innings for our program to be successful,” Kopp said.

His goal for both players reflects this too. For McNeillie, Kopp would like to see him bulk up and gain strength. Since joining the team, he has gained about 20 pounds, but Kopp would like to see him continue growing to maintain his strength throughout a game or series. This could also help him achieve his own goal of being more consistent. At the beginning of last season, he had a four-game stretch where he gave up 16 runs in 5 2/3 innings, followed  by a five-game stretch in which he didn’t give up a single run in 10 innings.

“I had a lot of ups and downs last year,” said McNeillie, who finished with a 7.07 ERA as a freshman but improved as the season went on. “I think the biggest thing for me is to just stay consistent with who I am.”

As for the 6-foot-5 Peterson, Kopp wants his mental game to strengthen. To stay focused and persevere in hard moments when his pitching might not be as good as he wants it to be. He allowed 44 walks in 63 innings, which is more than he would have liked. Minimizing that is his goal for the season and staying strong mentally will help if and when he falls behind in the count.

“The biggest goal, at least, is to walk significantly less than I did last year,” he said. “I want to be able to set my team up for a good chance to win.”

The No. 10 Gators open the season at 6:30 p.m. Friday with the first of three games against Air Force at Condron Family Ballpark.