LSU came into Gainesville riding a nation-best 24-game winning steak, and left on a three-game losing streak.
The No. 12 Tigers’ (29-7, 8-3 Southeastern Conference) dominating pitching staff, which started the series with an NCAA-best .72 ERA, was tagged for seven runs Sunday and 13 in the series as No. 6 Florida (27-4, 9-2 SEC) earned a three-game sweep with a 7-1 win in the finale.
“It’s a huge series win and something to be proud of for the whole year,” UF coach Tim Walton said.
The Gators’ pitchers outperformed their highly touted counterparts, as Stephanie Brombacher and Ensley Gammel allowed only one earned run during a combined 21 innings pitched.
The duo also recorded 15 strikeouts while limiting the number of walks to just four.
“I’m always more impressed with the pitching because the pitching is going to win us championships,” Walton said.
Although Sunday’s game ended as a blowout, it was highly contested through the first five and a half innings.
The Gators got the scoring started in the bottom of the second when junior Aja Paculba singled in Corrie Brooks to give UF a 1-0 lead.
Florida added to its advantage in the third, when freshman Brittany Schutte’s two-run homer made the score 3-0.
“This weekend, I’d been struggling a lot so I was just trying to settle down and see my pitch and help contribute like I had been doing,” Schutte said of her home run.
Schutte’s blast came on an afternoon in which she was starting her third game in less than 24 hours behind the plate in the place of injured Tiffany DeFelice.
“It’s been a little rough on the body,” Schutte said. “But I’m used to catching so I just gotta get back in the swing of things.”
Brombacher got the start Sunday but was pulled after three innings of one-hit ball in favor of freshman Ensley Gammel, who gave up an unearned run in the fourth due to an error by Megan Bush but settled down and allowed just one base runner the rest of the way.
It was not until the bottom of the sixth that UF extended its lead from 3-1 to 7-1, as Gammel, Paculba, sophomore Michelle Moultrie and senior Francesca Enea all had RBI hits to give the Florida lead some extra cushion.
“Their pitchers were making good pitches but every time they put a ball a little bit over the plate we found a way to knock it in there,” Walton said. “Give our hitters credit because I thought that was one of the best pitching staffs I’ve seen in a long time for sure.”
