NASHVILLE, Tenn.— Vanderbilt used a five-run fourth inning to break open a 3-2 game and ran away with a 13-5 win over Florida in front of 2,477 fans Sunday afternoon at Hawkins Field.
The win was the sixth straight for the Commodores who completed their second straight SEC series sweep. VU improved to 39-8 overall and 15-6 in SEC play while the Gators fell to 23-23 and 10-10 in conference action. The 39 wins for Vanderbilt is the second most in school history (45 in 2004), moving ahead of the 38 wins set a year ago.
Cody Crowell (2-1) scattered nine-hits over 6.2 innings of work with 11 strikeouts in his first start of the season.
“Cody was good,” said Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin. “Even the runs we gave up I thought were cleaner hits in cleaner situations but he did a good job with eleven strikeouts. And on offense we scored forty runs this weekend. It was a good fit for us. It looked easy. I don’t know if it was as easy as it looked but the kids made it feel that way because they swung the bat well.”
David Macias, Alex Feinberg and Pedro Alvarez each had three hits to lead the 17-hit Commodore attack.
Florida took a 1-0 lead in the first when Cole Figueroa scored on a throwing error by Cody Crowell who was trying to start a double play on a slow grounder by Matt Laporta.
Vanderbilt came back with two runs in the bottom of the second to take a 2-1 lead. Jonathan White led off with a walk and moved to third on a double by Andrew Giobbi. David Macias and Alex Feinberg had RBI singles to bring both runners home.
Ryan Flaherty staked the Dores to a 3-1 lead in the third with a solo homer to right. It was his third round-tripper of the season and first since blasting the game-winner against Boston College 36 games ago.
Matt Laporta got the run back for the Gators in the top of the fourth with a solo shot to center, his 17th of the year.
The Commodores then blew the game open with five runs in the fourth. Feinberg had a RBI double with consecutive RBI singles by Pedro Alvarez and Ryan Flaherty. Ryan Davis closed the scoring out with a two-run single to make it 8-2.
LaPorta added a RBI single in the fifth to cut the lead to 8-3.
VU plated three more runs in the bottom half with Parker Hanks coming through with an infield RBI single to lead the way.
Dominic de la Osa and Alvarez closed out the scoring for the Dores with back to back RBI doubles in the sixth.
Florida added single runs in the seventh and eighth to close out the game scoring.
The 40 Vanderbilt runs in the series set a new benchmark in Commodore baseball history for most runs in a three-game SEC set.
The Commodores will have the week off to complete final exams before starting a six-game road trip beginning with a three-game series against Georgia next weekend in Athens.
Florida 100 110 110 -5 12 4
Vanderbilt 021 532 00x -13 17 1
Bullock, Keating (4), Porter (5), Edmondson (5), Chapman (7) and Neer, Tignor. Crowell, Christiani (7), Weathers (9) and Robin, Hawkins. W- Crowell 2-1, L- Bullock 2-5. Sv- None. HR- FLA: LaPorta (17) VU: Flaherty (3)
