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SEC Baseball Tournament 2012: Florida Gators Eliminates South Carolina, Facing Vanderbilt Next

An 11-hit performance and the first career complete game pitched by junior Brian Johnson led the Florida Gators to a 7-2 elimination victory over South Carolina on Friday night, pitting the No. 2-seed Gators against Vanderbilt on Saturday in the semifinal round of the SEC baseball tournament.

Junior Mike Zunino went 1-for-3 at the plate while driving in three runs, which was highlighted by a two-run blast in the third inning. Nolan Fontana, who went 2-for-3, scored three runs out of the leadoff spot and freshman Casey Turgeon (2-for-4) hit a two-run single during a three-run fifth inning.

Florida and Vanderbilt will play right after Kentucky and Mississippi State go head-to-head. Sophomore right-handed pitcher Karsten Whiston (3-0, 3.07 ERA) will take the mound for the Gators, while lefty Kevin Ziomek (5-6, 4.79 ERA) will be the starting pitcher for the Commodores.

The winners of the Saturday's game will face each other on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET for the SEC tournament championship. The title game will broadcast on ESPN2.

Read more on Florida athletics at Alligator Army and for more on he college baseball tournaments, check out this StoryStream.

Photographs by cstreet.us, thelastminute, turtlemom nancy , fesek, kthypryn, justinwright, sue_elias, pointnshoot, and scrapstothefuture used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.