No. 22 Gators Baseball Travels To No. 12 South Carolina

Gainesville, FL -

With three weekends in league play remaining, No. 22 Florida (27-16) hits the road for the first of two-straight SEC series away from Gainesville when it travels to the Palmetto State to face No. 12 South Carolina (31-14). The Gators (12-9) are one game ahead of the Gamecocks (11-10) in the jumbled Eastern Division race. UF is 3.5 games behind Georgia (29-14-1/15-5-1 SEC), and USC is locked in a three-way tie for fourth with Kentucky and Tennessee.



Freshman right-hander Tommy Toledo (Tampa, Fla.) (4-4, 3.40) will start Friday's opener at 7 p.m., live on Sun Sports, against right-hander Mike Cisco (5-2, 5.08). Toledo has worked 45.0 innings this season, with 20 strikeouts and 23 walks, and will be making his first start since April 13 versus Arkansas.



Saturday's matchup at 4 p.m. will pit junior left-hander Stephen Locke (Tampa, Fla.) (3-2, 3.21) and USC southpaw Will Atwood (4-2, 4.22). In his last outing, Locke crafted the first complete game of his career to help Florida even its series with No. 5 Georgia. The lefty scattered eight hits, including seven singles, and was helped by three Gator double plays in the 7-2 win. He tallied two strikeouts and one walk to notch his first SEC victory since March 17, 2007 against Mississippi State and kept UGA off the scoreboard until the fifth inning.



The SEC leader in victories, junior Patrick Keating (Harrisburg, Ill.) (8-0, 2.69), will start Sunday's finale at 1:30 p.m. (live on CSS) against right-hander Blake Cooper (5-4, 3.52). Last weekend, Keating matched his career-high of six strikeouts and worked 6.2 innings in the finale versus Georgia in which he yielded seven hits and two runs. The righty is 7-0 in seven SEC starts with a 2.68 ERA.



Since South Carolina joined the SEC starting in the 1992 season, the Gators have captured only one of the eight three-game series held at Sarge Frye Field. The Orange and Blue's successful visit occurred with a sweep during the '96 campaign and the team has dropped five of its last six outings on the road to USC.



The Garnet and Black has defeated the Gators in seven of the past eight series, the lone exception when UF took two of three meetings in Gainesville over March 25-27, 2005. South Carolina holds an 11-5 advantage in the series between the schools.



Florida head coach Kevin O'Sullivan is quite familiar with South Carolina after serving on Clemson's coaching staff between 1999 and 2007. During his time with the Tigers, the bitter rivals split 34 meetings.



The Gators rebounded from a 7-4 loss to fifth-ranked Georgia last Friday night to claim the final two games of the series by identical 7-2 margins. UF ended a three-series SEC slide and handed the Bulldogs their first conference series loss of the campaign. Florida is now 22-6 at McKethan Stadium this spring. O'Sullivan has guided the Orange and Blue to six wins over top-10 opponents and series triumphs over SEC division leaders No. 5 Georgia and No. 8 Ole Miss. On the weekend, Florida was 30-for-99 (.303) with eight extra-base hits (six doubles, two homers) and was 6-for-6 on stolen bases.



Senior Josh Edmondson (LaGrange, Ga.) worked 2.1 scoreless innings to preserve Keating's win on Sunday to collect his second save. The reliever lowered his ERA to 2.63, second-best on the team. Senior first baseman Brandon McArthur (Seffner, Fla.) roped a three-run double in the third stanza to open the scoring and is 23-for-54 (.438) with 10 RBI, five runs and four doubles in the past 14 games. Sophomore shortstop Cole Figueroa (Tallahassee, Fla.) went 6-for-12 (.500) against the Bulldogs and is batting .337 overall with 40 RBI, 14 stolen bases, 11 doubles and six homers. Freshman second baseman Josh Adams (Jacksonville, Fla.) was 4-for-11 (.367) with four runs, a two-run homer and two walks and sophomore center fielder Matt den Dekker (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.) was 4-for-11 (.367) with three runs, three stolen bases, two runs and two walks.



Last weekend marked the first time since 1998 that the Gators defeated the Bulldogs at home by four or more runs in back-to-back games. In game two, den Dekker was 3-for-3 and scored twice and became the first UF player with three thefts in a game since Jonathan Tucker versus Vanderbilt on March 27, 2004. Senior Jon Townsend (London, Ky.) also matched a season high with three RBI.



Cisco notched eight strikeouts over seven innings as South Carolina eliminated the Gators from last season's SEC Tournament, 5-3. Matt LaPorta had given UF a 2-0 lead in the first inning with his 74th and final homer of his outstanding career. The Gamecocks reached Keating in the second for three runs on four hits to take a lead it would not relinquish. The right-hander worked 5.1 innings in his starting debut, allowing eight hits and five runs (three earned), with five strikeouts. USC had kicked off the double-elimination event with a 4-3 win in 12 innings.



During the regular season, the Gators and Gamecocks split the first two games in Gainesville last April before USC pulled out the rubber match, 8-6, in 11 innings. The visitors cruised to a 12-2 victory in the opener behind six shutout innings from undefeated Harris Honeycutt. Cody Neer began a big weekend with a career-high three hits but RHP Bryan Augenstein was roughed up for 14 hits and 11 runs (10 earned) over 6.1 innings. Trailing 8-2 in the eighth on Saturday, the Gators staged a remarkable rally to square the series. Brian Leclerc clubbed a grand slam, his first homer since April 1, 2006, to bring the hosts within 8-6. Down to his team's last strike, Neer blasted a three-run round-tripper in the bottom of the ninth to lift Florida to a 9-8 win. The tables were turned on Easter Sunday, as the Gamecocks socked a game-tying three-run jack in the ninth and notched the victory with a two-run bomb in the 11th to post an 8-6 triumph.



UF was swept in its last visit to South Carolina on March 24-26, 2006 (4-1, 6-5, 21-4). The three losses to the Gamecocks marked USC's first sweep of the Gators since 1995 and enabled the hosts to win a series at Sarge Frye Field for the seventh time in eight meetings. UF batted .202 (20-for-99) in the set and were outscored by a 31-10 margin. The 21-4 defeat in the series finale was the team's third-worst loss in school history and was the team’s second-worst setback in SEC action. The staff's earned run average was 9.00, as the Gamecocks totaled 43 hits in 24 innings.