BATON ROUGE, La. – The No. 8/6 Florida softball team (41-10, 12-7 SEC) blasted its way to a 14-4 six-inning series-opening victory over No. 10 LSU (37-11, 9-10 SEC) on Saturday afternoon at Tiger Park.
Florida’s 14 runs are the most runs ever scored in a game against LSU.
It was a career day for sophomore Ava Brown who slugged her first career grand slam, recorded her first career multi-home run game and drove in a career-best five runs.
All nine of Florida’s starters recorded at least one hit, combining for 13 in the game, with Jocelyn Erickson, Reagan Walsh and Brown each tallying two hits apiece.
The Gators recorded their 29th multi-home run game of the season, with Mia Williams sending a solo shot out of the park and Brown slugging both a solo shot and a grand slam.
Walsh continued to swing a hot bat, tallying her third multi-hit game in the last four games, going 2-for-3 with three RBI.
She also recorded the 21st sacrifice fly of her career, tying Megan Bush and Charla Echols for the Florida program record.
In the circle, Keagan Rothrock tossed her seventh complete-game, picking up her 11th win.
NOTABLES:
* For the 21st time this season and seventh time in SEC play, the Gators plated double-digit runs in an SEC game
* The Gators have tallied 29 multi-home run games, including in 11 conference match ups
* Florida has recorded 24 run-rule victories, including four in SEC play and in three of the last four games
* Five different Gators have combined for nine grand slams this season: Reagan Walsh (3), Rylee Holtorf (2), Kenleigh Cahalan (2), Korbe Otis (1) and Ava Brown (1)
* Keagan Rothrock picked up her third SEC victory of the season in the circle, improving to 13-5 in her career against conference opponents
* The sophomore pitcher holds a 44-13 career record
* Taylor Shumaker picked up her 70 RBI of the season, becoming just the ninth player in program history to have 70 RBI or more in a single season
* Both of Jocelyn Erickson’s hits were doubles, matching her career-best
* Erickson now has 13 doubles on the season, second-most on the team
* Mia Williams has now hit a team-best 17 home runs this season, eight in conference games
UP NEXT:
The Gators will look to take its fifth SEC series of the season on Sunday at 6 p.m. ET on SEC Network.