With Rothrock dominating, Gators blank Florida Gulf Coast, 6-0

Keagan Rothrock pitched 6-1/3 dominant innings in Florida's 6-0 win over FGCU (UAA Photo)

The fast ball may not be what it was before the surgeries for compartment syndrome, but bit by bit, Keagan Rothrock is compensating.

The Gatorade National Player of the Year in 2022 after leading Roncalli to the Indiana high school championship, she nearly missed her entire senior year after undergoing surgery for the rare affliction that attacked her lower extremeties. That once crackling fast ball of 70-72 miles per hour lost some of its heat, forcing her to learn to adjust on the fly.

“The surgeries that she had in high school were pretty extreme; that’s not something I’ve ever gone through with an athlete with compartment syndrome,” Florida coach Tim Walton said Friday afternoon after Rothrock gave up just two hits in 6-1/3 innings, leading the Gators (47-12) to a 6-0 win over Florida Gulf Coast in the first game of the Gainesville Regional. Rothrock (27-6, 2.33 ERA) faced 22 hitters without giving up a walk while striking out three. She was efficient, needing just 74 pitches, 51 of which were strikes.

Instead of fast balls that hitters can’t catch up to, Rothrock now mixes up her pitches. She throws a rise on two levels, a drop, a screwball and a fast ball. When she’s hitting her spots in the strike zone as she was Friday, she gets a lot of easy pop ups and ground balls. The way Rothrock handled the FGCU lineup was a lesson in how she is evolving from a softball equivalent of Nolan Ryan into a Greg Maddux, who doesn’t need the hard stuff to dominate.

It has been on the job training for the Florida freshman. Velocity, ball movement, even her work ethic has been altered. Everything is different, yet as the new Keagan Rothrock figures things out, she still gets the results. She’s won championships at every level since she was a kid, in large part because she’s always had an unparalleled work ethic.

She still works hard, but the routines have been forced to change.

“She was an animal in the weight room before her injuries,” Walton said. “She doesn’t lift weights. She doesn’t do the lower body stuff. She doesn’t run, she just bikes. We’ve made tons of adjustments. The kid’s always been an animal, a worker, worker, worker.”

The pitches aren’t nearly as explosive as they once were, but when she locates as she did Friday and lets her defense do the work behind her, she gets results. The Gators were error free. The ball only reached the outfield six times and only one of those was a hit, a fourth inning double with two outs. There were five pop ups to the outfield and six in the infield that found their way into the mitt of third baseman Ariel Kowalewski.

Rothrock was in such complete control that only one real web gem was required to set down the Eagles. With a runner on second with one out in the third inning, Olivia Black hit a bouncer in the hole on the left side of the infield that Skylar Wallace corralled with a sliding stop on her knees. Without getting back to her feet, Wallace threw across the infield for the out, saving a run while holding the runner at second. Rothrock got out of the inning with a foul pop that Kowalewski pulled in for out three.

The stop and throw were spectacular and instinctive.

Skylar Wallace throws out a runner from her knees in the third inning (UAA Photo)

“That just kind of happens,” Wallace said, adding, “It’s more of me trying like to not let the ball get by, blocking it, takes a weird hop and just reading it. If I get my arm in slot I can get the ball over there but I don’t practice throwing from the knees, just kind of do it.”

Almost on cue, Wallace came up in the bottom half of the third with two outs and two on. On a 2-1 count, Wallace lined the ball up the middle and legged it out for a double to drive home Mia Williams, who had walked, and Kendra Falby, who got the Gators’ first hit of the game on a hard bouncer off the pitcher’s glove.

That was all the offensive support Rothrock really needed. Winner of six in a row, Rothrock has won all four of Florida’s postseason games. She was 3-0 at the SEC Tournament last weekend.

Rothrock credits some of the success to superstition – she wears her left sock on her right foot, right sock on her left, a practice since her high school days – while letting her defense work behind her.

"One of the biggest things is having a great defense behind me and knowing the stuff I have is good enough; good enough to beat anybody," Rothrock said. "Just having trust in that they're going to swing and miss, that I'm going to get outs from my defense and then just letting the offense do the rest." 

The 2-0 lead stood until the sixth when Wallace started a 4-run rally with a line drive up the middle. A walk to Jocelyn Erickson and a double steal set up Reagan Walsh for a sacrifice fly to left field that drove in Wallace. After Katie Kistler was intentionally walked, Avery Goelz went opposite field with a line drive over the third baseman’s head to score Erickson. Kowalewski closed out the scoring with a 2-run single.

The win advances the Gators to a winner’s bracket game at 1 p.m. Saturday against South Alabama (33-18-1), a 1-0 winner over Florida Atlantic. Florida Atlantic and Florida Gulf Coast will face off at 3:30 in an elimination game.

Gator notes: In her last eight games, Wallace is 18-37 (.486) with five doubles, four home runs and 18 RBI … In the third inning, Mia Williams slid into second base but was called out on a force. Williams got to her feet, signaled safe to Walton in the third base coaching box. Walton trusted his player and asked for a replay. When the booth took a look, it was obvious Williams was safe so the call was reversed. Wallace followed with her 2-run double … This was the 18th NCAA regional the Gators have hosted. The Gators have won game one 17 times with 12 shutouts. In the last 10 regional openers, the Gators have allowed a grand total of two runs and 12 hits.