Florida keeps Arkansas’ SEC skid going with a 6-4 series-opening win in Gainesville

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

No. 5 Arkansas and unranked Florida continyed trending in different directions Friday night in the Sunshine State.

Florida’s Luke Heyman hit a three-run home and pitcher Liam Peterson fanned 13 over six innings as the Gators downed the Razorbacks 6-4 in Gainesville.

It was the ninth win in 10 overall games for Florida (29-15, 7-12) while Arkansas (36-8, 13-6) lost for the fifth time in its last seven SEC contests.

Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn was impressed with Peterson, who allowed the Razorbacks five hits and walked two while throwing 114 pitches.

“Well, because he’s a first-round draft choice, No. 1,” Van Horn said. “I mean, the dude throws harder than most big league starters and he didn’t lose it.

“He made some mistakes with the fastball and left them in the plate and a couple of them left the yard, but really his stuff is amazing. He was throwing his breaking ball for a strike at will.

“That’s hard to do when you throw 97 mph, that you can just dump that breaking ball in there just about any time you want.

“It’s kinda crazy when you think about it, when a guy can throw it for a strike and it’s 96, 97, 98 mph every time. But he’s just really good. A lot of talent, really talented.”

Florida head coach Kevin Sullivan was happy to the get an opening win in a series that will continue Saturday at 2 p.m. (SEC Network) and Sunday at noon CST (SEC Network +).

“Everybody knows how important these games are down the stretch here and for us to win the first one against obviously a very good Arkansas team should sure give us a boost,” Sullivan said.

The loss combed with No. 1 Texas’ 2-1 win over Texas A&M pushed the Razorbacks four games back of the Longhorns in the SEC race.

Arkansas took a 2-0 lead as Wehiwa Aloy and Cam Kozeal both launched a solo homer in the first two innings.

IT was Aloys’ 17th home run this season and his 7th in the last 10 game while Kozeal’s was his ninth in 2025.

“Those are two good hitters there and I thought I made really good pitches, but they go ahold of them,” Peterson said.

Peterson fanned 8 of 9 at one point in the game.

“I’ve never done anything like that,” Peterson said. “Probably about the third I thought the slider was strong.”

Sullivan was impressed with his team’s ability to rally.

“We fell behind with those two home runs in the first and second and that’s a credit to Arkansas hitters,” Sullivan said. “But obviously we battled back with the wild pick at first (in the third inning) and then the big swing of the bat was the three-run  homer by Luke.”

Florida’s Justin Nordeau got his team’s first hit against Arkansas starting pitcher Zach Root in the third.

Nordeau scored all the way from first base after a called pick off throw from Root went awry.

“Well, I’m sure it disrupted him,” Van Horn said of Root. “He’s rolling along and he’s got…  I don’t remember what the count was, but you had two outs and a runner on first and he picks him off.

“It was a called pickoff. We just felt like he was running and he was. He threw it up and out. First baseman didn’t catch it.

“You saw what happened. The guys scores all the way from first base and It’s kind of kind of shocking. As a pitcher, you’d probably rather give up a home run than that.”

In addition to that, right fielder Logan Maxwell reinjured his hamstring chasing after the baseball on the pick off throw.

“Running after the wild pick-off throw,” Van Horn said. “How about that one? So you give up a run, hurt your hamstring again because we throw a pick-off away.

“That was tough. Logan’s fighting that thing all the time. You try to sprint after that ball and there you go.”

Van Horn does not see having Maxwell in the line up fpr Saturday’s game.

“I’m not planning on it at all,” Van Horn said. “Let’s put it that way. Just let him rest, try to heal up.”


Blake Cyr’s RBI single in the fourth tied it and Brendan Lawson then gave the Gators a 3-2 lead with one of his own in the fifth.


Heyman then delivered the big blow of the night when he hammered a full-count pitch from Root over the left field fence to put his team up 6-2.

Justin Thomas’ two-run homer in the seventh off reliever Luke McNeille trimmed Arkansas’ deficit to 6-4.

But the Razorbacks get not get anything going after that against Florida closer Jake Clemente.

Clemente picked up his fourth save of the season by fanning three and not allowing a hit over 2 2/3 innings of work.

“But what can you say about Liam’s performance? That was as good as he has ever pitched here and it was against a really good line up,” Sullivan said.

“We kind of flipped the switch on how were going to attack their hitters and obviously Jake came in and got the save. The important part about that was he only threw 31 pitches.”

Sullivan called Peterson up to his office before Friday’s game to watch tape of how the pitched in the sixth inning against Mississippi State last weekend.

“He was in a good spot,” Sullivan said. “…His stuff just looked different than he had thrown all night. We just sit there and watched a couple of minutes bee I told him this is what it is suppose to look like all the time. Obviously he did that tonight.”

Sullivan stressed the job Peterson did in putting up zeros as his team came back.

“It was really important because we have had a tendency of giving up rebound runs,” Sullivan said.

Photo courtesy of Razorbacks Communications