The Florida softball team came into the Southeastern Conference tournament on a roll, but Friday it ran into a buzz saw.
Although the No. 5 Gators (43-8, 21-5 Southeastern Conference) started the day on an eight-game win streak in which they outscored opponents by an average of 11 runs per game, they got a taste of their own medicine in Friday’s 9-1 SEC Tournament semifinal loss to No. 11 LSU (44-13, 22-8 SEC). UF can only look to Gainesville’s NCAA tournament regional for a chance to rebound.
The eight-run margin of defeat was Florida’s largest since June 1 of last year, when it fell 8-0 to Washington in Game 1 of the Women’s College World Series final.
“Overall just really not a very good performance,” coach Tim Walton said of Friday’s loss. “All the way around I didn’t think we played our best. We didn’t pitch as well as we’re capable of and I don’t think we played as well on defense as we needed to.”
The LSU offense struck early and often, scoring twice in the top of the first on a bases loaded walk and an illegal pitch by junior ace Stephanie Brombacher.
The Tigers tallied runs in each of the first four innings, adding to their lead with a solo home run from sophomore Morgan Russell to start the second before batting around in a third inning that saw LSU bring three runs home on a pair of RBI singles and another on a bases loaded walk.
LSU then stretched the lead to eight in the fourth, scoring first on a two-error play by UF and then later on a single to right field.
Junior Megan Bush came through with Florida’s lone run in the bottom of the fourth, hitting her second homer of the tournament on a 1-0 pitch from LSU ace Cody Trahan, who allowed just four hits in her complete-game performance.
At its outset the game was similar to Thursday’s first-round contest against Auburn, when the Gators scored only a single run in the first four innings before tallying eight in the fifth to secure a 9-1 run-rule victory.
But against LSU that offensive explosion never came, and the team now has to turn its attention to Thursday’s NCAA Regional in which it will host Bethune Cookman, FIU and UCF for a chance at redemption.
“I don’t think it’s easy to ever dismiss a loss but you have to,” Walton said. “At this point in time in the season if you sit here and think about this too long it’ll be a long but short postseason so we have to do a good job of making sure we rebound and regroup.”
Although the Gators drew the fourth overall seed in the tournament, their regional will be far from easy as they will have to play rematches with a UCF team they needed nine innings to beat on March 31 and an FIU team who defeated the Gators 8-3 on April 20 in Gainesville.
