NASHVILLE, Tenn.--Carter Holton pitched seven innings of two-run ball, second baseman Jayden Davis had three hits and two RBIs as Vanderbilt topped Florida, 5-2, at Hawkins Field on Friday night.
Davis’s first-inning double off Pierce Coppola gave Vanderbilt a lead it never relinquished.
Alan Espinal added a home run for the Commodores (29-10, 10-7 Southeastern Conference).
Ryan Ginther threw a perfect eighth and Greysen Carter did the same in the ninth. The Gators had just four runners all evening.
Vanderbilt, which beat Florida 10-5 on Thursday, clinched the series.
Holton struck out 10, walked none and threw 74 of his 110 pitches for strikes.
“(The key was) pounding the zone with every pitch,” Holton said. “Getting (ahead) in counts, trying to keep them guessing, throwing some off-speed pitches for strikes, that’s what worked in those situations.”
He didn’t allow a runner until the fifth and didn’t give up a run until Brody Donay and Jac Caglianone both hit solo home runs in that frame.
“I don’t think solo home runs ever beat you but they beat you when the addition of extra bases occur,” Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin said. “He didn’t allow that. That was really the difference. That’s such a dangerous team.
“But Carter pitched really well. I thought he got downhill well. He used all his pitches. Just minimized damage the entire time and he completes."
The Gators got within a a run with those sixth-inning blasts. But freshman Colin Barczi drove in an eighth-inning run with a sacrifice fly to left to make the Commodores’ lead two before RJ Austin drove in another with a single.
Holton worked a 1-2-3, nine-pitch first and then Davis smacked a two-out, ground-rule double to the alley in left-center for a 2-0 lead.
Florida replaced starter Coppola with normal No. 2 starter Liam Peterson in the second. In the third, Espinal homered to center for a third run.
Peterson left the bases loaded on walks in the fourth and then exited in the fifth after taking a liner off Braden Holcomb while also favoring his forearm.
Holton’s off-speed pitches were really working by the second; he struck out Colby Shelton, Tyler Shelnut and Luke Heyman consecutively (spanning the end of the first and the first two outs of the third) with that pitch.
“I was throwing a good bit of change-ups, actually,” Holton said. “That was working. I threw a few sliders to left-handed hitters later.”
In the third, it was the fastball that worked; he struck Landon Russell and Donay out with that pitch.
The Gators didn’t get a hit until Heyman lined a single to left-center, just a few feet out of the reach of Troy LaNeve in left.
Holton allowed a one-out single in the seventh, but came back to get out of the inning unscathed.
The Commodores clinched the series, a much-needed lift after they were out-scored by 30 runs in a sweep at Texas A&M last week. It also avenged a three-game sweep at the hands of the Gators last season in Gainesville.
In contrast to last week, Vanderbilt has kept mistakes at a minimum in this series. The Commodores didn’t allow a free pass to a Gator hitter on Friday and played errorless ball for the second-straight night.
“You can’t get too caught up in anything,” Corbin said. “I know fans get caught up in wins and losses but the reality is, It’s a damn-tough league. It’s a buzz saw. At times I know you can look like your team can’t play and at times you look a whole lot better than what you are."
Caglianone’s bomb tied an NCAA record for consecutive games (nine) with a home run. Holton said that Friday’s homer came off a slider.
Topics on today’s show, as well as this season’s baseball content, are presented by the Murfreesboro Pure Milk Company, a family-owned, third-generation mile and ice cream distribution company located in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. A partnership began over 50 years ago with Purity Dairy in Nashville to provide Purity milk and ice cream to consumers in middle Tennessee, and they now serve southern Kentucky, northern Alabama and Chattanooga and north Georgia. Today, they supply grocery stores, convenience stories and others with Purity products, as well as Mayfield, Nestle and Haagen Dazs ice cream. For more information, visit their website at MPMCI.com.
