Florida and Florida State met three times during the regular season, the Gators were victorious in all of them.
“The bottom line, we’re a different ball club than we were six weeks ago,” said Florida State head coach Mike Martin.
The Seminoles will have to be if they hope to win two games in Gainesville to advance to the College World Series. The Gators outscored the Noles 17-4 this season. It’s the second straight year McKethan Stadium will host the two schools for the Super Regionals. Florida swept Florida State last season.
“It’s a new game, we’ve had success against them in the past, but that doesn’t matter,” said Gators first baseman Peter Alonso. “It’s the postseason, anything can happen.”
“Put it in the past, it doesn’t matter who won,” said pitcher Tyler Holton. “If we won those three games a few months ago we still got to win two more games this weekend.”
The top overall seed Florida have spent most of the season ranked number one in the country and posses one of the nation's best pitching staffs and defenses. Their 3.02 ERA is good for 9th while their fielding percentage puts them third, not much room for error for the Noles.
“You can’t give away a run to the University of Florida, because they will make you pay for it,” said Martin.
Florida State scored 43 runs in their three regional games, a hot streak they’ll need to continue if they hope to advance.
“Florida’s a very competitive team so we’re just looking forward to playing them,” said Seminoles outfielder Jackson Lueck. “Move on what we did in the regionals through there, and just enjoying the game and having fun out there.”
“The stakes are always high, and it’s always good to ruin their season,” said Gators pitcher Shaun Anderson. “End their season and keep ours going, so to do that again this year as we did last year would be kind of cool.”
Words that make the in-state rivalry even sweeter.