Florida baseball was chasing top-seeded Georgia in the 2026 SEC Baseball Tournament semifinal on Saturday, but the Gators had already turned the game into a fight. Florida led Georgia 6-3 heading into the top of the fifth, a scoreline that matched the urgency of a bracket where every inning now carried elimination weight.

That position meant something because Florida had arrived with real momentum. The Gators beat the No. 4 Alabama Crimson Tide by run rule on Thursday, then went back to work against the SEC regular-season champions with Russell Sandefer on the mound as their No. 3 pitcher. Florida had beaten Georgia in Sandefer’s Sunday start last month, and that win came with 13 runs from a lineup that looked much the same here.

Brendan Lawson was hitting like he did in the first two months of the season, and Kyle Jones, Ethan Surowiec and Blake Cyr were giving him protection around the order. Caden McDonald and Hayden Yost also helped wake up the bottom half of the lineup. Florida did not need every bat to stay hot, but it needed enough of them to force Georgia to keep pitching under pressure, and it had done that through four innings.

The fourth inning was where the game tilted into a scramble. Jackson Barberi hit Rylan Lujo to open the frame, and replay upheld the hit-by-pitch because Lujo stood his ground rather than initiate contact. Kenny Ishikawa was 2-for-2 after singling through the right side and then stole second base, helping keep Florida on the front foot while Georgia tried to settle the inning down.

Georgia answered with loud contact of its own. Brennan Hudson nearly hit a three-run home run to right field, but Hayden Yost made a leaping grab at the wall and turned what looked like a breakthrough into a sacrifice fly. Ricky Reeth then allowed RBI doubles to Kolby Branch and Ryan Black, and Blake Cyr never saw Black’s ball off the bat, leaving him with no chance at the catch. Brendan Lawson later saved another run by diving for a line drive from Phelps to end the fourth.

Florida’s relief plan was not built around fresh arms. Joshua Whritenour had not been used in the SEC Tournament, and Jackson Barberi, Ernesto Lugo-Canchola and Luke McNeillie had not thrown since Wednesday before the semifinal. Barberi leaned heavily on his changeup against Georgia’s hitters, and the pitch kept working. Ryan Black, Daniel Jackson and Michael O’Shaughnessy all went down on it as Florida tried to protect its lead.

There was still damage on both sides of the ball before Barberi found that rhythm. Tre Phelps reached with a one-out single up the middle off Barberi’s glove in the third inning, and Vigue hit Cade Kurland to open the inning. Hayden Yost later singled through the right side, part of a stretch that kept Florida in scoring position and underlined how quickly this matchup could swing if either bullpen lost its edge.

Zach Brown then settled things for Georgia with a 1-2-3 inning, striking out Cade Kurland, Hayden Yost and Kyle Jones in sequence. That kind of response is what made Saturday’s semifinal feel like a test of depth as much as power: Georgia entered as the top seed and SEC regular-season champion, while Florida arrived as one of the hottest teams in the country after beating Alabama and after already taking the regular-season series.

Even with Georgia’s pedigree, Florida had shown it could score in bunches and survive when the game got messy. The next innings would show whether that was enough to keep it moving toward a second straight statement win, or whether the top seed would finally turn the semifinal back to form.