The third-ranked Florida Gators can hit with the best of college softball teams, but they know that ultimately the key to success is always how you pitch and how you play defense, especially the latter.
Against SEC opponent Kentucky at Katie Seashole Pressly Softball Stadium Saturday afternoon, the Gators saw a few defensive mistakes prove to be the difference in the second game of a doubleheader. Florida saw its 12-game winning streak snapped by the Wildcats, 5-3, after winning the opener by the same score.
Coach Tim Walton was obviously not very happy with the way his defense performed in the second game, which saw the Gators (33-5, 13-3 SEC East) commit two errors—both by Brittany Walker—and surrender three unearned runs to the Wildcats (27-17, 11-10 SEC East)
“Defense wins championships,” Walton said. “The offense and all that stuff is good, but defense wins championships.”
It was obvious Walton didn’t want to elaborate too much on his feelings for his team’s defensive play, and he wasn’t shy about stating that he expected much more out of his defensive unit.
“Defense wins championships,” Walton said. “That’s all I’m going to say. We’ve been working our [butts] off on it. It’s not working right. We’re working hard, just not playing good defense.
“We don’t strike out very many batters, so we put a lot of pressure on the defense. We’ve gotta be able to get the ball and play better defense.”
Florida’s defensive lapses allowed the Wildcats to claw their way back into a game that the Gators had control of after back-to-back home runs by Francesca Enea and Kelsey Bruder spotted the Gators a 3-0 lead after the first inning. It was the sixth time this season the Gators have gone yard in consecutive at-bats. Enea now has 16 home runs this season, two behind the record she set last season. Enea also has 57 career home runs, three behind the SEC all-time record.
The Gators also jumped out to an early lead in game one, when Megan Bush launched a grand slam to give the Gators a 4-2 lead after Stephanie Brombacher surrendered two first-inning runs.
Usually the Gators work an opponent and make adjustments as the game goes along, eventually leading to a late-inning onslaught to put the game away. But on Saturday, the Gators were only able to muster one run after the first inning — a solo shot by freshman Kelsey Horton in her second start of the season in game one.
With all of Florida’s runs coming by way of the long ball, Walton also hinted that he would like to see more small-ball run production.
“Being able to make good adjustments on a pitcher who keeps the ball low and mixes up her speeds,” Walton said. “We’ve gotta find a way to get some action going, get some runners moving and find some holes.”
Kentucky flipped the script on the Gators in game two, making just enough adjustments to score a pair of runs in the fourth and fifth innings. It didn’t hurt that they were able to capitalize on Florida’s defensive miscues.
“They did make some good adjustments, based on what we were doing and how we did it,” Walton said. “Both games we started hot and slowed things down.”
Although the Gators defense had an off day, Florida still saw two outstanding defensive plays that abruptly ended big Kentucky innings.
In game one, with the Gators clinging to a two-run lead and the bases loaded in the sixth inning, reliever Ensley Gammel induced an inning-ending double play to shortstop that saw Aja Paculba double-clutch before gunning down the runner at first. The play completely killed any hopes that Kentucky had of making a comeback.
Michelle Moultrie gunned down a runner at the plate in the fourth inning of game two that seemed like it would also give the Gators just enough room to breathe and ultimately escape with a victory, but the stellar play was not enough to overcome Florida’s overall defensive performance in the loss.
Outside of the long ball, the only Gator who was really able to muster anything against the Wildcats was Moultrie, who went 5-for-6 on the day, raising her batting average to .414 on the season. Bush was the only other Gator to record more than one hit on the day, going 3-for-6.
Paculba saw her 16-game hitting streak come to an end, leaving her tied with Melissa Zick (2007) for the longest hit streak in Florida history.
The Florida pitchers had what Walton described as an average day, with Brombacher settling down after giving up two first-inning runs in the opener to move to 22-4 on the year. Brombacher surrendered seven hits, one walk and three earned runs in the victory.
Gammel (10-1) suffered her first loss of the season in game two on the heels of her three unearned runs. Gammel gave up 10 hits and two earned runs in the loss.
The teams will take the field Sunday at noon for the rubber match.