By BRAD GOLDBACH
A lack of production at the plate and a poor defensive inning led to top-ranked Florida’s first softball loss of the season, a 1-0 setback to the Baylor Bears in the season-opening series finale Sunday at the Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium.
Florida had runners on second and third in the bottom of the first inning after coach Tim Walton called for a sacrifice bunt from Ali Gardiner, but the Gators failed to capitalize on the opportunity, setting the tone for the rest of the game.
“You knew how important the game was to me when I’m bunting with one of my best hitters in the first inning, first and second with no outs, dropping a bunt down to move them over,” Walton said. “I thought that really was not quite the game, but we needed to score there and take the pressure off our hitters and put the pressure on them again.”
The Gators (2-1) recorded a total of three hits and one walk on the day against freshman hurler Whitney Canion, who struck out 10.
Senior center fielder Kim Waleszonia led off the bottom of the first with a single. Sophomore second baseman Aja Paculba moved her to second on a hit-and-run fielder’s choice which left her at first. Gardiner then laid down a sacrifice bunt to move the runners to second and third, but Canion got Francesca Enea to foul out and struck out Tiffany DeFelice.
Walton put the blame of the loss squarely on the hitters.
“We’re going to have to hit,” Walton said. “We can’t get shut out. There’s no way a team like this, with the offense we have, should get shut out.”
The Gators didn’t make any excuses for their poor hitting, pointing to a lack of making adjustments as the reason for the failure at the plate.
“We came out attacking and we kind of fell into a rut and didn’t make any adjustments,” Waleszonia said. “By the third inning, we should be taking better hacks and not doing the same thing we did Friday night or our first at-bat today. We just didn’t make the adjustments fast enough or at all.”
Senior right-hander Stacey Nelson (1-1) made some adjustments from her first outing Friday night and turned in a solid pitching performance in the loss. Nelson, who retired the first 13 batters she faced, gave up one unearned run on one hit and no walks, while striking out seven batters.
“There were spots I needed to get better,” Nelson said. “I had a better day than the other day, but if you don’t come out with a win I guess it’s not a better day.”
The lone run of the game came in the top of the fifth inning as a result of sloppy fielding. Catcher Courtney Oberg of Baylor singled and pinch-runner Sophia Lujan moved to third on a throwing error by Nelson, leaving runners at first and third. Sophomore shortstop Megan Bush then bobbled a grounder two batters later, allowing Sophia Lujan to score the game’s only run.
But Walton did not panic and told his players to continue taking the same approach to try to put a run on the board. He told the players to make an adjustment and try to be more aggressive earlier in the count to try to put the ball in play.
The Gators came back in the bottom of the fifth to have Bush single to left and pinch-runner Le-Net Franklin to steal second. But Franklin was left stranded as was Enea after a two-out single in the sixth.
Even though the batters were unable to make the right adjustment to put a run on the board, the team is not panicking after its first loss of the season.
“It’s always disappointing when you lose, but I’m not going to freak out about one loss the first week of the season,” Nelson said. “It’s a little bit of adversity we have to face, so in that sense it can test our character a little bit.”
Along with testing their character, the players expect to learn from the loss and build upon it the rest of the way.
“You learn a lot from wins and losses, but obviously you just learn to make better adjustments and actually figure out what adjustments to make,” Waleszonia said. “You got to figure out which ones to make. It’s a good stepping stone to help us fix some stuff.”
The Gators will try to bounce back this week with a Wednesday afternoon game at Jacksonville with first pitch at 5 p.m. Florida returns home Feb. 13 to play host to the Lipton Invitational. Florida plays Texas Tech at 5 p.m. and Coastal Carolina at 7:15 p.m. On Saturday, Florida plays Florida Atlantic at 12:30 p.m. and South Alabama at 2:45 p.m. The tournament ends on Sunday with Florida playing Georgia Tech at 2:30 p.m.