The curse of Condron?

After Saturday night, it was fair for Gators fans to wonder if stylish new Condron Family Ballpark, which opened in 2021, was cursed. Florida, the SEC regular-season champion and the No. 2 national seed, fell 5-4 to regional No. 3 seed Texas Tech and with the defeat, edged 1 game from a third consecutive elimination in a regional hosted at Condron.

In fact, with the loss Saturday night, the Gators fell to just 2-5 in NCAA Tournament games held at Condron, with ignominious defeats to the likes of South Alabama, USF, and a middle-of-the-pack Big 12 Texas Tech team included in the loss ledger.

Worse, a Florida team with the starting pitching (Friday-Sunday starter batting average against of .214) and the hitting (3rd in the nation in team home runs, 4th in .OPS) to compete for the program’s second national championship was faced with the brutal task of winning 3 games in 2 days.

When the Gators woke up Sunday morning for a matinee with Big East champion UConn, only 5 teams in the past 5 NCAA Tournaments had managed that feat.

Make that 6, and consider the budding curse of Condron reversed after Monday afternoon.

It was a collective effort.

Florida’s stars came through, as you’d expect.

Florida’s All-American first baseman/pitcher, Jac Caglianone, the man fans call “Jactani,” bashed the Gators to a win Sunday afternoon, with his NCAA-leading 31st home run putting any hopes of a UConn comeback to bed. Caglianone would add a hit and an RBI in the nightcap, a tighter than the final score 7-1 win over Texas Tech. In the process, Caglianone would move within one RBI of Preston Tucker’s school record 85, accomplished in 2009.

Not to be outdone, Wyatt Langford, who will likely be a top 3 pick in the MLB Draft next month and might go No. 1, stole the show Monday. First, he handed Florida an early lead with a rocket blast home run to left field, equipped with a patently absurd exit velocity of 116 miles per hour.

Then, with the game still in the balance in the 5th inning, Langford flashed his baseball IQ, stealing second and then taking third when he realized that due to a shift on the left-handed Caglianone, Texas Tech had no one covering third base.

Langford’s heroics resulted in a 4th run for the Gators, and senior BT Riopelle, who a week ago tore up Hoover with light tower power, burst out of an 0-for the regional slump with his second home run of the afternoon to put the game, the regional, and any emerging curse of Condron to bed.

It wasn’t just Florida’s stars who kept the Gators from the fate that befell their prior two regional-hosting squads.

Florida’s depth came through, too.

On a weekend when the Big 12 pounded teams across the country, showing off big bats and bullpen depth with on-the-road regional wins in Coral Gables and Fayetteville, Florida’s pitching depth suffocated Texas Tech’s offense, denying the Red Raiders a 6th Super Regional in the past 9 seasons.

The stars were Cade Fisher, a freshman from Dalton, Georgia, and Ryan Slater, a draft-eligible redshirt freshman. Both players spent the bulk of the year in relief, but when called upon to beat Texas Tech twice in less than 24 hours, delivered a combined 12 innings of 1-run baseball, surrendering just 8 hits. The steady Florida bullpen did the rest, with All-SEC closer Brandon Neely especially impressive, tossing 4 shutout innings over 2 days.

Slater limited the Red Raiders to soft contact, and threw strikes when Florida took the lead, challenging Red Raiders hitters with his fastball all afternoon Monday.

It was Fisher, however, who posted the heroic start, battling over 7 innings, including 6 of which came in a scoreless game, to keep Florida’s season alive while the Gators waited for the bats to wake up. Fisher was one of the nation’s most coveted high school arms a season ago, as his 3-pitch repertoire and command ahead of his years helped him post a Georgia high school record 0.71 career ERA.

Florida head coach Kevin O’Sullivan famously trusts freshman arms, but he also brings them along slowly, and Fisher spent most the season in a bullpen role, only occasionally pitching in high leverage spots. Sunday night, in the ultimate high leverage start, Fisher delivered 7 innings, keeping a dangerous Texas Tech lineup off balance, striking out 6.

After the game, even O’Sullivan had to admit he was surprised by the freshman’s performance.

“We were hoping to get 5,” O’Sullivan said after the game. “We would have been pleased with that and then let (Neely) throw the rest of the game.”

Instead, Neely was only needed for 2 innings, sparing his arm for Monday afternoon when Florida needed him to close out the regional.

Written off as a long shot after Saturday night, the Gators used their star power and their depth to advance to their 11th Super Regional in school history.

There, they will get another chance at vanquishing old demons when they face conference foe and 15 national seed South Carolina.

The Gamecocks dominated Florida in a punishing 3-game April sweep in Columbia, outscoring Florida 25-10 and run-ruling Florida in the series opener. That embarrassing series, according to Caglianone, was a turning point for the Gators this season. Florida’s players knew what was being said and written about them after the sweep.

“We knew people probably thought we were just going to fall short of our goals again,” Caglianone said before the SEC Tournament. “That was a huge moment, where we showed what we are made of in how we responded.”

How the Gators responded, of course, was to win 1o of their final 13 games to capture a share of the SEC championship.

Revenge wasn’t available at the SEC Tournament, as the Gators and Gamecocks did not meet in Hoover.

But it is now available at Condron this weekend.

And you can bet revenge is a dish best served cold for a deep, talented cold-blooded group of alligators.