Nicole DeWitt blocked it all out.
The boisterous Baton Rouge crowd.
The pressure of a two-out at bat in the top of the ninth.
The LSU pitcher who had retired 13 straight Gators coming into the inning.
She locked in on a (0-1) pitch left over the plate, lifting a home run over the center-field wall.
“Nicole DeWitt’s two-out three-run homer in the second game was huge,” coach Tim Walton said in a release. “You can recruit, but you just don’t know what kind of DNA somebody has until you see them in certain moments. For Nicole to hit a home run like that says a lot about who she really is.”
DeWitt’s three-run blast in the second game of Friday’s doubleheader gave the Gators (32-1, 7-1 Southeastern Conference) their best start to a season in program history. Sophomore Aleshia Ocasio (12-1) picked up two wins on the night after starting in the first game and relieving junior Delanie Gourley in the second.
No. 1 Florida won both games against No. 7 LSU (26-7, 3-5 SEC) by scores of 3-0.
In their first matchup, Ocasio dueled LSU’s Carley Hoover, who was coming off a no-hitter on March 6.
Neither offense had a hit going into the third inning.
Junior Justine McLean reached first after striking out on a passed ball.
Senior Kelsey Stewart got the game’s first hit with a single down the left-field line, putting McLean on third base.
McLean scored the game’s first run after racing home on a wild pitch. Then freshman Amanda Lorenz hit her team-high ninth double to left-center field, scoring Stewart and giving Florida a 2-0 lead.
UF put one more on the scoreboard when sophomore Kayli Kvistad took a 2-2 pitch over the left-field fence on her fifth home run of the season.
Ocasio stonewalled the LSU offense, which came into the day as the ninth-highest scoring team in the nation.
She pitched a seven-inning complete game, giving up only three walks and five hits, and she struck out eight.
In Game 2, Delanie Gourley got the start against LSU’s 6-foot-2 tosser Allie Walljasper.
Both pitchers stifled their opposing offense. Walljasper had given up only an infield hit through the first eight innings.
“We’re constantly searching for an identity as an offense," Walton said. "We’ve got some young hitters that when they are going good, they’re great. When things aren’t going as well, they are thinking a lot and getting inside their own heads.”
The Tigers nearly broke the 0-0 tie in the bottom of the third after a slow single through the right side gave LSU’s Sandra Simmons a chance to score from second base.
But as Simmons rounded third, UF rightfielder McLean charged the ball and fired a rope to home plate, where catcher Aubree Munro put the finishing tag on the day’s best defensive play to preserve the tie.
Over and over again, the Gators got out of close calls with great defensive plays and situational pitching.
After Gourley gave up her season-high eighth walk of the game in the bottom of the seventh to put runners on first and second base, Walton put Ocasio back in.
Despite the pressure and having already thrown more than 100 pitches hours earlier, Ocasio got out of the inning with a 5-4-3 double play.
“The double play we turned in the seventh inning of the second game was as big of a moment as you have in a game,” Walton said.
“Overall, I thought both Aleshia and Delanie both did a good job of making pitches when they had to.”
It went until the ninth inning, after DeWitt hit her fourth home run of the year to give Florida the 3-0 lead, before Ocasio struck out the Tigers’ last batter.
Ocasio faced seven batters in the second game and not one reached base. The sophomore lowered her ERA, already the nation’s lowest, to 0.36.
Florida will play the Tigers in the final matchup of their three-game series in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, today at noon.
Contact Matt Brannon at mbrannon@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @MattB_727.
Nicole DeWitt bats during UF's 2-1 win against UNF on April 1, 2015, at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium.
