TALLAHASSEE – The No. 3 Florida softball team brought its hitting eyes to JoAnne Graf Field and 20 hits later left with a pair of victories over No. 19 Florida State Wednesday evening.
Coach Tim Walton’s Gators (32-4, 12-2 SEC) swept their instate rival 8-4 and 9-2, with every Florida starter getting a hit against the Seminoles (36-10, 8-4 ACC), who entered the game with a 1.24 team earned-run average. The 20 hits produced 16 earned runs.
The wins were the sixth and seventh in a row for Florida over Florida State and the Gators now lead the series 14-13.
Freshman shortstop Brittany Walker went 4-for-7 with two hits in each game. Junior second baseman Aja Paculba had a hit in each game to extend her hitting streak to 16 games, tying the longest hitting streak in Florida history (Melissa Zick, 2007).
Freshman catcher Brittany Schutte continued her hot hitting of late, going 2-for 6 with a double and her 12th home run, one away from tying the school record for freshmen set by current junior Megan Bush in 2008.
Meanwhile, the Gators got big pitching performances from its right-handed duo of junior Stephanie Brombacher and freshman Ensley Gammel. In the opener, Brombacher (21-4) went 5.1 innings, allowing five hits, four runs (three earned), one walk and striking out six. Gammel earned her third save of the season going the final 1.2 innings allowing one hit. In the second game, Gammel (10-0) went the distance, surrendering eight hits, two earned runs, two walks and striking out two.
The Gators’ bats and arms certainly did their jobs and so did the legs, which swiped seven bases including a season-high six in the opener during which Paculba and Gammel had two each. Gammel added another in the second game.
By the time Brombacher took the mound in the third inning, Florida had provided her with a 7-0 lead thanks to four runs in the second inning and three more in the third.
Schutte started things in the second with a walk and Bush reached first on an infield single. With two down, Gammel singled to right to score Schutte. After Gammel stole second, Walker singled to center to score Bush and Gammel for a 3-0 lead. Walker then stole second and scored on Paculba’s single to right.
It became 7-0 in the third when Kelsey Bruder singled, Schutte walked and Bush launched a pitch out in left. The Seminoles scored three in the bottom of the third and one in the bottom of the fifth to make things close at 7-4.
But Gammel and Paculba picked up their second stolen bases of the game in the sixth, with Gammel scoring on the front end of a double steal.
In the second game, the Gators broke up a 1-1 game in the third inning with the first of two four-run innings. With one out, Paculba beat out a chopper in front of the plate and Moultrie followed with a walk. Senior Francesca Enea singled to score Paculba and send Moultrie to third. Bruder brought her home with a sacrifice fly and then Schutte clubbed a two-run homer for a 5-1 lead.
Four more runs in the sixth inning sealed the victory, Florida’s 11th straight since a 10-4 loss at Alabama on March 27 and the Gators’ 15th in its last 16 games since a 6-4 extra-inning loss to Mississippi on March 13.
Gammel got the four-running inning started with a leadoff walk and Walker singled her to second. After Gammel stole third, Paculba hit a sacrifice fly for the first run. Moultrie kept things going with her second bunt single of the game and Enea singled home Walker. An RBI single by Bruder and an RBI double by Schutte made it 9-2 Florida.
The Gators return home for a three-game series against Kentucky. They start with a doubleheader on Saturday beginning at 1 p.m. with the first game being televised by Sun Sports. The series concludes Sunday with a single game at noon to be televised by ESPNU.