GatorCountry.com brings you this week’s Florida Gators softball review as the Gators finished the regular season by going 3-1 this past week. In this recap, we will break down the past week’s games, plus name a player of the week from the past week.
The Gators started the week off by dropping an extra inning game to Florida State on Wednesday before sweeping the weekend’s series. Florida played a rare out of conference weekend series that featured North Texas for three games and FAMU for one game.
Florida finishes the regular season with a 50-5 record and is SEC regular season championship which gives the number one seed for this week’s SEC tournament.
Results
- Florida lost to #2 FSU 3-1- losing pitcher Kelly Barnhill
- Florida defeated North Texas 8-0– winning pitcher Delanie Gourley
- Florida defeated North Texas 9-0- winning pitcher Delanie Gourley
- Florida defeated North Texas 8-1- winning pitcher Kelly Barnhill
- Florida defeated FAMU 7-0- winning pitcher Delanie Gourley
Offensive leaders
Junior Nicole DeWitt moved into the third spot in the lineup and racked up five RBI’s last week. DeWitt scored four runs and added nine hits over the five games.
Junior Janell Wheaton had one of her bigger week’s of the year as she had seven RBI’s last week. Wheaton has steadily increased her batting average she since started off the year slow and is now batting in the clean-up spot.
Junior Aleshia Ocasio is mostly known for her pitching but lately, she has been swinging a hot bat. This past week she had seven RBI’s and added a home run in Sunday’s game against FAMU.
Pitching
Tim Walton and Florida Gators softball pitching coach Jennifer Rocha threw only two of the Gators four pitchers this past week. Walton used Kelly Barnhill for the game against FSU and with senior weekend this past weekend, Delanie Gourley got more starts in the circle.
Senior Delanie Gourley had a great senior weekend by going 3-0 in 13.1 innings pitched in three games. Gourley didn’t allow an earned run and struck out 26 batters.
Sophomore Kelly Barnhill suffered her first loss of the year against FSU but made up for it by getting another win over the weekend. Barnhill pitched 17 innings last week and struck out 36 batters during her time in the circle.
Player of the week
Junior Aleshia Ocasio has been kind of forgotten in the circle this year but she’s been making a name for herself with a bat this year. Last week she was a big part of the line-up with her seven RBI’s and home run in five games.
This week’s schedule
Florida will play in the SEC tournament in Knoxville, Tennessee this week and the Gators are the number seed.