LEXINGTON ? The Kentucky baseball team looks to continue its winning ways when it travels to No. 7 Florida this weekend for a three-game series at McKethan Stadium beginning Friday at 6:30 p.m.
The series continues Saturday at 4 p.m. and wraps up Sunday at Noon. Friday?s game can be heard in the Lexington area on WRXA 1580-AM while the final two games of the series will be broadcast on WLXO 96.1-FM. All three games can be heard online at www.UKathletics.com.
Kentucky (14-9, 0-5 Southeastern Conference) has won two straight, including a 12-11 slugfest on Wednesday over Louisville which had just taken two of three from top-ranked Tulane. Meanwhile, Florida (20-7, 3-3) beat No. 6 Florida State, 9-2 Wednesday night.
?Florida has a tremendous team and (coach) Pat McMahon has done a great job with his team this year,? said Kentucky head coach John Cohen. ?It?s never easy playing on the road in the SEC and we?ve got a tough challenge ahead of us.?
As it has all year long, the Wildcats will start freshmen pitchers on Friday and Saturday. Scott Green (1-1, 4.15) gets the nod Friday against the Gators? Bryan Ball (5-1, 1.70). Saturday features Andrew Albers (3-1, 2.88) against Tommy Boss (4-1, 3.93).
On Sunday, Kentucky sends junior Kalen Gibson (4-1, 3.10) to the mound against Alan Horne (1-2, 5.67).
The Wildcats have also found an ace reliever in freshman Brock Baber, who earned two saves in Kentucky?s last two games. He has allowed just one run and four hits in his last six outings, covering 11 2/3 innings.
Overall, eight freshmen on the pitching staff have combined to start nearly 70 percent of Kentucky?s games while pitching 57 percent of the teams innings.
?I don?t know of any team in the country that has freshmen throwing as many innings as we do,? Cohen said. ?We?re committed to developing these players and they are kind of learning as they go what it takes to compete in the Southeastern Conference.?
At the plate, the Wildcats offense has been on a tear lately, scoring 29 runs in its last three games while pounding out 42 hits, all while playing without Brian Hastings and Billy Grace, who rank 1-2 on the team in batting average.
Kentucky owns a .304 team average, which ranks fourth in the SEC. John Shelby has paced the attack with 10 hits in his last four games. Dating back to March 13, Shelby is hitting .368 with four home runs and 11 RBI in 10 games.
?We had some struggles earlier in the month where we were making good contact, the ball was just going right at people,? Cohen said. ?We?re a young team and there are going to be some bumps in the road. But we have too much talent to stay down for long.?
The game will be a homecoming of sorts for the Wildcat coaching staff. Cohen and Kentucky pitching coach Gary Henderson were each assistants at Florida at one time in their career. Cohen worked under current Gator head man Pat McMahon in 2002-03 while Henderson was the pitching coach from 1995-98 and helped Florida to a pair of College World Series appearances.
?It?s a great experience to get to coach against Pat,? Cohen said. ?I have the utmost respect for everything he?s accomplished at Florida and I appreciate the time I was able to spend working under him.?
Last year, Florida took all three games of the series at Lexington. Since 1992, the Gators have won 27 of 32 meetings.
