BATON ROUGE, La. – Well, so much for that Louisiana hex down on the Bayou against the Florida Gators softball team.
No. 1 Florida, which was 0-6 in two series during coach Tim Walton’s four-year tenure in Gainesville, put an exclamation point on its weekend sweep of No. 18 Louisiana State with a 12-0 victory Sunday that took only five innings.
The Gators (46-3, 23-1 SEC) won for the 12th straight time and 35th time in their last 36 games. Their two victories (3-0, 1-0) on Saturday clinched the SEC season title. The shutout was Florida’s 27th of the season and sixth in a row. Opponents have not scored against Florida since Florida State scored a single run in the seventh inning – 44 innings ago – back on April 8 in a game the Gators won 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth on a walkout home run by Francesca Enea.
Sunday’s victory went to senior right-hander Stacey Nelson, who improved to 27-3 with her 15th shutout of the season. Stacked to a 2-0 lead, Nelson pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the first inning and lowered her nation-leading ERA to 0.41.
Nelson struck out seven while allowing just five hits – all singles – and one walk in registering her 24th complete game in 26 starts. Nelson now has 122 career victories, ninth all-time in the NCAA record books.
The Gators roughed up LSU starter Cody Trahan (7-5) who surrendered six runs (two earned) on five hits and a walk in 1.2 innings. Reliever Casey Faile surrendered six unearned runs on seven hits.
Senior Ali Gardiner, who came into the series with one hit in her previous six games, got her batting eye back in the three-game series that began with 3-0 and 1-0 shutouts Saturday, going 3-for-10. Gardiner belted two home runs in three at-bats Sunday and drove in four runs. She had a 2-run homer in the first inning, driving home leadoff batter Aja Paculba, who had singled, and another 2-run bomb in a 4-run second inning. Both homers went out in left.
Kelsey Bruder hit a 3-run homer out in right field in the Gators’ 6-run fourth inning and Megan Bush later added a 2-run homer in the same frame that went out in center.
The four home runs in one game are a season-high for the Gators, who became only the second team in SEC history to finish undefeated on the road in league play. With the sweep against LSU, Florida went 13-0 away from home in conference games, three more victories than what the 1997 South Carolina team rang up.
Previously, Florida had won only twice at Louisiana State (27-13-1, 10-9-1 SEC).
Gardiner’s first two-homer game with the Gators left her with six for the season and the four RBI brought her total to 33. Bruder’s homer was her 11th of the year (she now has 40 RBI) while Bush’s homer was her 12th and gave her 35 RBI.
Enea leads the Gators with 15 home runs and 57 RBI, and as team, Florida now has out-homered its opposition 62-4. The Gators have a 286-36 edge in RBI while maintaining a team batting average of .320 (to .162 for the opposition) and a slugging percentage of .537 (to .198).
Gardiner, Paculba, Bruder and Bush all went 2-for-3 for the Gators, who had 12 hits. Redshirt freshman Shaunice Harris got her first hit of the season as a pinch-hitter in the fifth inning. Enea had a run-scoring single, while Corrie Brooks and Michelle Moultrie also had hits.
Florida concludes the SEC portion of the regular season with a three-game series against Arkansas Saturday (doubleheader at 1 p.m.) and Sunday (1 p.m.). The Gators then are off until the following weekend when they play host to Longwood May 2 (doubleheader) and 3 to conclude the regular season.