Florida's trip to the WCWS came down to a matter of trust

Keagan Rothrock (7) gets an ice bath after Florida's 5-3 win over Baylor for Gainesville Super Regional title (UAA Photo)

Trust was put to the test in the top half of the seventh inning Sunday afternoon in the third and deciding game of the NCAA Gainesville Super Regional. Florida held a shaky 5-3 lead but Baylor had two on, one out and the very intimidating Shaylon Govan stepping to the plate to face Keagan Rothrock. A day earlier with two runners on in the top of the first, Govan sent a Rothrock pitch into orbit, pacing Baylor to a 5-2 win over the Gators to force game three.

Tim Walton pondered his options. He could walk Govan but that would load the bases and bring to the plate Aliyah Binford, who had blasted a home run off Rothrock on Friday. He could let Rothrock pitch to the Baylor slugger, who had ripped a line shot single to left center field in the top of the first and hit a deep fly ball to right in the fifth.

Confident that Rothrock could get the job done, pitching coach Chelsea Dobbins voted to pitch to Govan. Walton trusted his coach and trusted Rothrock. On the sixth pitch of the at-bat, Govan hit a screamer to left field that looked good enough to clear the fence but it died in the glove of Korbe Otis just a couple feet shy of a home run.

The moment the ball left the bat Walton admitted he was “okay, but Charla Echols punched me in my ribs. She goes, oh, and she got mad like she thought it was out, and it was topspin. So yeah, it was definitely … if she would have hit the home run, I think everybody in the country would have said the same thing that I would have said, how do you let their best hitter beat you? But we just went … I went with Chelsea's guide on that, that she felt like she could keep her in the ballpark.”

Two down when Otis squeezed the hard liner to left. That still left Binford, a very dangerous hitter with power. Binford worked the count full then got a pitch on her fists that was popped to Avery Goelz at first base. Game over. Series over. Gators (51-13) move on to the Women’s College World Series with a 5-3 win over Baylor (36-23).

This win had everything to do with trust and not just the trust Walton showed when he heeded Dobbins’ advice. After the loss Saturday, Walton said bouncing back would be all about trust.

“You've got to trust,” Walton said. “You've got to trust yourself. You've got to trust your teammates. You've got to trust the process. And most importantly, you've got to trust your team.”

To start with on Sunday, Walton trusted Rothrock (30-7). He yanked her with nobody out in the first Saturday after Govan did a 3-run, sub-orbital job. Ava Brown pitched very well in relief after taking over for Rothrock Saturday, so she was certainly an option on Sunday.

Rothrock was the Sunday option, however, and that had been the plan all along. In Walton’s way of thinking, it was a no-brainer.

“The plan was Keagan was going to start all three games so why are we going to leave her in a three-nothing game we can bring her back if we score more runs, which I was fully prepared for that,” Walton said, adding, “The kid pitches Friday night and Sunday night all the way through the SEC, and Sundays have been her best starts of the season.”  

Rothrock didn’t let him down. She gave up an unearned run in the top of the fourth and a 2-run homer to right field by Emily Hitt in the fifth. Walton was willing to live with the home run. It was simply a pitch whose location was off a little bit to a hitter who had done no damage in the previous two games.

“I think she only got maybe one hit on the weekend or something like that,” Walton said. 

Mia Williams crosses home plate after her second inning home run (UAA Photo)

Trust extended to Florida’s hitters, who struggled with the offspeed offerings of RyLee Crandall on Saturday. Walton wanted his hitters to lay off the offspeed stuff to force Crandall to throw hard stuff over the plate.

From the outset, Walton had a pretty good idea that his hitters would follow the new script. Instead of lunging and tapping weakly at offspeed offerings, Falby waited out Crandall to draw a leadoff walk. A force out later, Skylar Wallace drilled a single up the middle that sent Korbe Otis to third with Wallace taking second on the throw. Jocelyn Erickson hit a fly ball to right that scored Otis and moved Wallace to third. Reagan Walsh ripped a ball past third base to drive home Wallace for a 2-0 lead.

In the second, the Gators increased the lead to 4-0. Ariel Kowalewski led off with a single to left. Mia Williams tried to bunt Kowalewski over but the ball caught a piece of her foot in the batter’s box before trickling onto the field. Strike two on a hitter with a .175 batting average.

Crandall tried to blow a pitch by Williams for a strikeout, but Williams hammered it to center field for her seventh home run of the season. This, too, was all about trust.

“Yeah, I just think going back to my approach before the game, just trusting in a plan was really important in that moment, and I think that's exactly what I did,” Williams said. “So I think good things come when you have trust in your plan and yourself.”

The Gators seemed on the verge of a third inning rally that could have blown the game open when they loaded the bases with nobody out. Ava Brown drew an apparent walk to force in Florida’s fifth run, but Baylor challenged that Katie Kistler had left the base too early. The replay booth confirmed that Kistler left early so she was out at second and Brown was back in the batter’s box. Brown drew ball four on the next pitch, but she was caught napping on first when Williams lined a ball back to the pitcher, who flipped to first for an inning ending double play.

The Gators wouldn’t score again until the bottom of the fifth when two walks and a fielder’s choice loaded the bases. Kowalewski hit a deep fly ball to center field that scored Erickson from first for a 2-run cushion.

That left the final two innings to Rothrock, who gave up a sixth inning single and then a single and a walk in the seventh before closing out Florida’s 12th-ever trip to the Women’s College World Series.  

It was one more championship game pitched by Rothrock, who has been winning them in the circle since she was a kid. This one, however, was special.

“I think this one’s one a lot harder to do and two, a lot more special because everybody kind of knows you anyway with film," Rothrock said. "And I think that also just kind of makes it all the more sweeter just because you have to work hard, you have to scout the other team, and just kind of go in with the mindset, like, we've got this and we can do it.”

This was a very satisfying win for Walton, who has won 51 games this season with a completely rebuilt pitching staff. Walton didn’t return anyone who had pitched to even one batter in 2023. Additionally, there are 11 new players on the roster.

Gators are off to the Women's College World Series for the 12th time since Tim Walton became head coach (UAA Photo)

It wasn’t a complete rebuild, but it was close and yet the Gators won the SEC Tournament, a regional and a super regional while taking 13 of their last 15 games. Even with all that momentum, the Saturday loss caused Walton and his assistants burned the midnight oil asking how they could do a better job as coaches.

“All four of us stayed after a long time last night, just talking about not, you know, as people, coaches, players. You know, we just sat upstairs – actually downstairs, then upstairs – for a long time. We just talked about how can we be part of the solution, not part of the problem. You know, why are we going to blame someone for acting a little out of character? Why are we going to blame someone for poor pitch selection? We went back and watched the film to see the accuracy of the strike zone and all the other things just so you can continue to coach up your players the right way. I thought we did a really good job of that yesterday. And then this morning we pushed the reset button, met with each one of our hitters pregame, met with our entire team, and just talked about what it's going to take for us to ... I think it's 81 percent of all teams who win the first game march on to the College World Series, but I know that percentage goes way down to probably less than 50 percent when you lose the second game. I'm not perfect on that math, but I know it's not easy. And so, long and short, I thought we did a really good job of getting our players to kind of reset and get back to who they were.”

The reset worked enough that the Gators navigated a tough ball game and won a super regional that no one would have dared predict a month ago.  

SEC softball scores

Sunday’s games

Gainesville: FLORIDA (51-13) 5, Baylor (36-23) 3; Florida wins series, 2-1

Austin: Texas (52-8) 6, Texas A&M (44-15) 5; Texas wins series, 2-1

Knoxville: Alabama (37-18) 4, Tennessee (44-12) 1; Alabama wins series, 2-1

Columbia: Duke (52-8) 4, Missouri (48-18) 3, 9 innings; Duke wins series, 2-1

Stanford: Stanford (47-15) 8, LSU (44-16) 0; Stanford wins series, 2-1

Women’s College World Series

Thursday’s games

12 p.m. UCLA (42-10) vs. Alabama (37-18)

2:30 p.m. Oklahoma (54-6) vs. Duke (52-8)

7 p.m. Texas (52-8) vs. Stanford (47-15)

9:30 p.m. FLORIDA (51-13) vs. Oklahoma State (49-10)