No Love Lost: Can the Gators get past one of its biggest rivals on the way to Oklahoma City?

The World’s Largest Outdoor Party moves to KSP for a slugfest in the Supers.

By Loren Meadows, GatorBaitMedia.com, The Lowdown with Loren Meadows

The Florida Gators were all business as they made quick work of the Mercer Bears Sunday in the Gainesville Regional. Florida knocked off Mercer 8-0 in the inaugural game of the reginal round Friday and would duplicate that score in five innings Sunday to advance to the Super Regional round for the third straight season.

Ava Brown hit a three-run homer while catcher Jocelyn Erickson would bring home a pair of runs as the Gators methodically handled the Mercer pitching staff leading to three pitching changes in the win. Pitcher Keegan Rothrock (14-5) had possibly her best outing of the season allowing just one hit and striking out six Bears in 4 and 1/3 innings. Sophomore and fan favorite Olivia Miller would handle the final two batters as the Gators completed their third straight run-rule victory in the regionals for the first time in school history. 

Florida coach Tim Walton (UAA photo)

In reflecting on his team’s performance and their ability to handle the tournament, Coach Tim Walton stated, “I have said this quite a few times: We're a tough matchup in a tournament. Really tough. That benefits us a little bit. Head to head, in a three-game series, obviously we've done very well with that during the year, but tournament style? We're a tough, tough matchup because our lineup is pretty good.” Florida would get hits from seven different players in the lineup with six different Gators crossing home plate.

Ava Brown continued her hot May, picking up where she left off in last year’s postseason. In speaking of the teams’ preparation, Brown stated, “No team wants it to be their last game. So, we prepared this week, like we would really any other week, competing against the best of the best, competing against each other. Getting each other better, pitchers, hitters, whatever, and I think that's what best prepared us for this weekend."

Ava Brown goes yard (UAA photo)

The Gators will now host one of their most hated foes in the Super Regional to punch a ticket to Oklahoma City for the third straight season. Sunday afternoon in Durham, North Carolina the Georgia Bulldogs came from behind to defeat Duke in the final game of the Durham Regional in 5-2 in 8 innings. There is no love lost between the Gators and Bulldogs in anything but in softball the two teams have their own history to make this matchup more than interesting. The Gators were the two-time defending national champs in 2017 when Georgia held the Gators scoreless in two games to knock off top-rated Florida in the Super Regionals. In 2021, the Gators would again face heartbreak at the hands of the Bulldogs who would again hold the Gators scoreless in two games to advance. Despite the Super Regional losses the Gators have rebounded to take 6 of the last 8 matchups including a 9-4 win in Auburn last season on their way to the 2024 SEC Tournament Championship.

While the annual football matchup between Florida and Georgia is usually the epicenter of this rivalry, KSP will most certainly replace Jacksonville as the holy grail for this matchup at least for this weekend. The Gators will be heavily favored to take the best of three series but if football has taught us anything the team that is favored in this matchup does not always leave with the prize.

Can the Gators continue their recent dominance, or will the Bulldogs vanquish another higher rated foe on their front porch to punch the golden ticket and grab bragging rights until October?