Florida's Brendan Lawson finds hitting stroke after visit from dad

Florida sophomore slugger Brendan Lawson started the college baseball season on fire, leading the Gators at the plate into the thick of the SEC schedule with a .373 batting average and 11 home runs after 29 games.

Since then, however, the shortstop has seen some struggles, with the rest of his teammates following suit a few weeks later, when Florida went through a stretch of six losses in seven games starting at the end of March. But the dark cloud continued to hover over his head even when the team returned to its winning ways.

Over 10 game appearances coming into this past weekend's series, Lawson had gone 4-for-37 (.108) with zero RBI; reduce that to the last eight appearances, and he was 2-for-30 (.067). During that stretch, he saw his batting average collapse from a robust .346 all the way down to a perfectly mediocre .283 while failing to put one over the fence.

Then on Friday night, he went 1-for-4 and drove in a pair of runs; on Saturday, he went 2-for-4 with a home run and two RBIs; on Sunday, he went 1-for-3 with a solo homer plus a hit-by-pitch. Lawson's hitting rebounded back to where it was before and his power stroke awoke from its five-week slumber, signaling a resurgence.

So what was behind this recent success? Were teams attacking him differently before? Was there something bothering him?

"He and I have had some conversations. (It's) more mental than anything else. I don't think it's anything physical," Kevin O'Sullivan said after Sunday's game.

"I don't know exactly what's kind of clicked here this weekend, but this game is as much — if not more — mental than it is physical. And sometimes you can kind of put yourself mentally in a spot that doesn't allow you to have success," he noted.

"Then you kind of figure out that failure is part of this game — not that you have to accept it, but it is part of it. Sometimes this is the first time players have ever really gone through a stretch like that. You know, they've always been the best player on a high school team or travel team or in the year he's coming off of last year."

O'Sullivan ultimately deferred the question to his sophomore standout.

"He would have to tell you, he'd have to answer that question," the head coach said.

So when Lawson came to the podium for his turn at the postgame press conference, the query was repeated.

"I didn't think there was a huge difference in how I was being attacked," he responded.

"Actually, my process of getting back was my dad flew to town, and we went to a high school and hit (batting practice) for two hours on Thursday night. I've always found that when I'm not feeling my best, and I kind of just need to make a few tweaks, that my dad's the best person to go to."