Kevin O’Sullivan reflects on 2017 Florida team, discusses similarities with this year
By Keith Farner
Published:
Kevin O’Sullivan and the Florida Gators are trying to duplicate the success the program found in 2017 at the College World Series.
The Gators take on Virginia on Friday in a game set for 7 p.m. ET.
The Florida coach will look for that 2017 magic with some of the same kind of players the Gators had in 2017. O’Sullivan was asked about comparisons between the 2 teams.
“Any time you get to this point you see some similarities,” O’Sullivan said. “I think having Alex Faedo be the No. 1 for us in ’17 and him being able to pitch twice against TCU, which was a very difficult team to pitch against, I think they led the nation or close to it in stolen bases that year. Then you have a guy like Brady Singer, who is sitting in the 2-hole, who is obviously having a great career at the Major League level. You have Jackson Kowar who was a first round pick going into Game 3. You had Michael Byrne, An All-American closer.”
While there are similarities with pitching, O’Sullivan said it’s a different offensive team this time.
“We had some guys like India and JJ Schwartz,” he said. “We’ve had some really good players that can hit home runs and that type of thing. But I think that team was more of a contact team. Very fundamentally sound. We had a tremendous catcher in Mike Rivera, who is now on our staff, who was one of our best leaders we’ve ever had. BT kind of falls in that line. Dalton Guthrie was our shortstop who was just absolutely nails defensively, and Josh has turned into that. Yeah, there’s some similarities, but there’s some differences too. It always goes back to the pitching and playing defense up the middle for sure.”
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
