David WhitleyGainesville Sun
Well, it was fun while it lasted. And Florida’s NCAA baseball party lasted a lot longer than any sober person would have imagined.
Last call came shortly after 11 p.m. Wednesday, when Brody Donay hit into a double play to seal a 6-0 loss to Texas A&M. If he’d have gotten on, Jac Caglianone would have been the on-deck batter.
If Cags had gotten up, he might have hit 7-run homer to win the game.
Yeah, it would have been the first 7-run homer in baseball history. But if any player or team could have defied the laws of baseball, it was the 2024 Gators.
Just three weeks ago, skeptics were ragging on the NCAA selection committee for inviting Florida to the big party. With a 28-27 record, UF was the worst of the 11 SEC teams that got in.
The Gators were a deepfake or cheap fake of a tournament team. Then the magical postseason mystery tour began.
Oklahoma State was 23-5 at home and hosting the Stillwater Regional. Florida won.
More: Brilliant career of Florida baseball two-way star Jac Caglianone ends short of goal in CWS
Clemson had lost only five games at home going into its Super Regional. Florida won.
After that game, someone snapped a picture of Caglianone holding up the winner’s trophy. He posted it on Instagram with a caption:
“tHeY dOn’t bElOnG.”
I’m not sure what the weird capitalization signified, but the overall message was clear. Florida was officially in the Chip-on-Shoulder mode.
It was clichéd and predictable, but the effect was genuine. UF wanted to prove everybody wrong. And though he never said it, Caglianone must have wanted to prove this year’s Golden Spikes Award is not exactly a 24-carat model.
The Spikes is college baseball’s version of the Heisman, and the three finalists were announced before the tournament. A recount is now in order.
Going into Wednesday night’s game, Caglianone was batting .438 with four doubles, six home runs and 14 RBI in the NCAA tournament. He’d walked 17 times, 13 of them intentional.
Opponents all but refused to pitch to Caglianone. That prompted Kevin O’Sullivan to move Caglianone to the leadoff spot Wednesday morning for the first time in his career.
Cags promptly did a Rickey Henderson impersonation in the elimination game, going 2-for-2 with three walks and a stolen base. Oh yeah, he also hit a home run in the 15-4 blowout over Kentucky.
It was number 35 for the season, number 75 for the career. That broke the school record held by Matt LaPorta, who was in the crowd and tipped his hat to his long-ball successor.
All in a day’s work for Cags.
“It is extremely difficult to be a player like Jac and have the whole world looking at you,” O’Sullivan said. “Maybe people don’t quite understand the amount of pressure that’s being put on him to perform day-in and day-out.”
Pressure?
More: Florida baseball bats silenced in season-ending loss to Texas A&M in College World Series
Caglianone had the most, but there was plenty to go around. The Gators won five elimination games before Wednesday night.
Players who struggled all season started coming up clutch. Like Pierce Coppola, who’d never pitched more than 4.1 innings in a game before Wednesday.
He stuck out nine Wildcats in five innings. Donay had two homers, including a grand slam. The game bubbled with UF’s esprit de corps.
“Just playing for each otherwas kind of ourmotto, and what we'vebeen running with this postseason,” Caglianone said. “Despite all the ups and downsof the regular season, none of that matters now. And now it just kind of falls, next game, just leads into that.”
The breakfast blowout led to the dinner rematch with Texas A&M. The Aggies won 3-2 in the CWS opener thanks to a homerun-saving catch in the 9th inning. There was no such drama Wednesday night.
The Gators struck out 14 times and were 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position. All those chips on the shoulder couldn’t overcome Texas A&M’s pitching.
But hey, the Aggies were the No. 3 seed and supposed to be in the CWS finale. They’ll meet the No. 1 seed Tennessee in the showdown most anticipated.
Nobody anticipated UF would be the next-to-next-to last team standing. That made a forgettable season one to remember for Florida fans and cemented a legacy for this Florida team.
As their leader might put it:
tHeY dId bElOnG!
David Whitley is The Gainesville Sun's sports columnist. Contact him at dwhitley@gannett.com. Follow him on X @DavidEWhitley
