Florida entered the 2023 NCAA Tournament as the No. 2 national seed, the highest-rated team from the SEC. After 2 games, the Gators will now face elimination in their own regional.

Texas Tech, the Gainesville Regional’s No. 3 seed, is in the driver’s seat to advance to the Super Regional round. The Red Raiders are 2-0 after a 5-4 win over UF on Saturday.

All 5 Texas Tech runs were scored on home runs. It was a 3-3 game in the bottom of the 8th inning when Gavin Kash homered for the 2nd time in the game, making it 5-3.

Florida, Saturday night’s away team due to the NCAA Tournament format, managed to get just 1 run in the top of the 9th inning. The Gators finished 1-of-9 with runners in scoring position.

Kevin O’Sullivan’s squad needs 3 consecutive wins to survive the regional round. Florida will face UConn, the regional’s No. 2 seed, at noon on Sunday. The winner of that game will face Texas Tech at 6 p.m. ET. The Red Raiders’ opponent will have to beat Texas Tech twice to advance.

Florida started 2-way star Jac Caglianone on Friday and turned to ace Brandon Sproat (6 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 7 K) on Saturday.