Bethune-Cookman baseball beats No. 20 Florida for another ranked win

Bethune-Cookman baseball beat a ranked SEC team. If that headline feels familiar, that’s also because it happened last week. The Wildcats took down No.

20 Florida 13-7 in Gainesville on April 14 to pick up their second ranked win over an SEC team in seven days. Bethune-Cookman defeated defending national champion and then-No. 24 LSU 10-7 on April 7.

The last and only instance the Wildcats beat the Gators was a 6-2 win on June 4, 2017, which was their last ranked win prior to last week’s LSU game. B-CU was able to earn its second-ever triumph against the Gators, who are fourth in the NCAA’s RPI, with a seven-run seventh inning that broke a 5-5 tie. The two major scoring plays were an Andrey Martinez double and a Jorge Rodriguez single that each plated two runs.

Darryl Lee and Michael Rodriguez singled to pick up two additional RBIs, and Erick Almonte reached base on a throwing error that allowed Maikol Lucena, who walked at the beginning of the inning, to score. Kyle Jones hit a sacrifice fly and Brendan Lawson doubled to drive two Gator runs to the plate in the bottom of the seventh, but Bethune-Cookman’s lead proved to be insurmountable. Lee put a stamp on the Wildcats’ victory with a solo shot to right field in the top of the ninth inning, and Justin Morales shut the door in the bottom of the ninth.