By Bob Redman
A couple of first-year Gators and a third that played in just four games a year ago were honored on different All-SEC squads announced by the Southeastern Conference this week. Transfer catcher BT Riopelle and redshirt freshman Wyatt Langford were a big part of a surging offense for the Gators in the 2022 regular season. Freshman right-handed pitcher Brandon Neely did the improbable and found himself inserted firmly in the starting lineup for Florida not long after the start of the SEC portion of the schedule and received freshman offers from the conference.
Riopelle, the Gators’ starting catcher and a fourth year junior that transferred from Coastal Carolina, earned first-team All-SEC honors by leading all conference catchers with 14 homeruns, 50 RBI, and a .581 slugging percentage. Riopelle was fifth on the Gators with his .306 batting average, sixth with a .373 on-base percentage, and fourth on the squad with 108 total bases in the regular season. As a catcher he finished with a .990 fielding percentage. Riopelle makes the jump from second-team All-Sun Belt Conference in 2021 at Coastal Carolina to first-team in Gainesville.
Langford, the starter in left field for Florida and who played in just four games a year ago, was legitimately robbed from the first-team and awarded second-team All-SEC honors. Langford’s numbers should have merited him Player of the Year. He led the Gators with a .360 batting average, a .452 on-base percentage, and a .720 slugging percentage. He finished the regular season with 21 home runs making him only the sixth Gator ever to hit 20+ homeruns in a season.
The argument for Player of the Year? He’s tops in the league in homeruns, his 71 runs scored was tied for second in the league. To further bolster his right to first-team honors he also was third in total bases with 152, third in slugging percentage, third in number of hits (76), seventh in the conference with 55 RBI and doing that while batting leadoff. His batting average was ninth in the SEC. With all of the offensive accolades, he had a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage with 94 defensive chances. These numbers are all-time great kind of numbers and he somehow missed the first-team.
Neely made the Freshman All-SEC team as a pitcher after working his way into the starting weekend lineup for the last seven SEC series of the regular season. The right-hander finished the regular season 3-1 with a 3.38 ERA with batters hitting just .192 against him. He struck out 64 batters in 5 innings with the note that his performance improved in SEC play. His final performance of the season was a seven-inning shutout of South Carolina when he finished with a career-high 10 strikeouts.
At this writing the Gators are 1-0 in the SEC Tournament with an extra-inning win over South Carolina and due to rain delays will play their second contest Thursday starting at 10:30 a.m. against the Texas A&M Aggies.