They say nobody’s perfect, but the Florida softball team was about as close as it gets Wednesday night.
In the most lopsided doubleheader in UF history, the No. 6 Gators (39-7, 17-4 Southeastern Conference) swept North Florida (23-27, 9-7 Atlantic Sun Conference) by a combined 30-0, setting a number of team and personal records along the way.
“We were seeing the pitches really well and we had really good balance and great discipline,” senior Francesca Enea said. “The whole team one through sixteen did a great job. The people coming off the bench did great, the original lineup did awesome, everyone did what they needed to do for us to win by that much.”
Florida got the afternoon started with a 22-0 victory in Game 1.
Stephanie Brombacher and Erin Schuppert threw a combined no-hitter while nine different Gators contributed RBIs as UF set the school’s single-game record for runs scored.
Enea got the scoring started in the bottom of the first when she tied her own Florida single-season record with her 18th home run of the year.
The two-run blast was the 59th of Enea’s brilliant career, putting her just one behind Kelly Kretschman’s SEC record of 60.
“I try not to think about it because I don’t want to get out of control with my swings,” Enea said. “I tell myself to be balanced and I just go up there thinking that we need to win this game. All the individual accolades that come along with that are just bonuses in the end.”
Four batters later Tiffany DeFelice stretched the lead to five with a three-run home run in her first home at-bat since breaking her hand in a game against UCF on March 31.
“Her being in the lineup obviously makes us better in a lot of ways,” UF coach Tim Walton said. “It really stretches that lineup and stretches that defense a little bit more.”
Freshman Brittany Schutte also had a big day for UF, first knocking in a pair on a double in the second before launching a three-run home run that gave her sole possession of UF’s freshman home run record with 15.
Schutte’s bomb was part of a 14-run third inning in which the Gators also got a grand slam from Kelsey Bruder and a three-run home run from freshman Kelsey Horton.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had that many runs in an inning,” Schutte said. “I was surprised and when the announcer was naming things for people to win I was like, ‘That all happened in one inning?’ It was ridiculous.”
When Corrie Brooks brought the lead to 22 with her fifth-inning home run, she tied the team’s single-game record with its sixth and set the team’s single-season record with its 87th.
The Gators offense continued to roll in the nightcap, as four of the first five batters either walked or were hit by a pitch to give the team an early 1-0 advantage. Bruder then followed with an RBI groundout before DeFelice hit her second first-inning three-run home run of the day, stretching the UF lead to five.
Florida also scored on RBI doubles by Horton in both the first and third innings, bringing the score to 8-0.
That would be plenty of run support for freshman Ensley Gammel, who allowed only three hits in her five-inning complete-game shutout.
