![Florida starting pitcher/relief pitcher Keagan Rothrock (7) pitches during a NCAA softball game at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Wednesday, February 11, 2026. Florida beat Jacksonville in their home opener 11-1, [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_2469,h_1388/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/213/01krp7c42msxj5svph7k.jpg "Florida starting pitcher/relief pitcher Keagan Rothrock (7) pitches during a NCAA softball game at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Wednesday, February 11, 2026. Florida beat Jacksonville in their home opener 11-1, [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]")
The road to the Women’s College World Series is one that ramps up in a hurry once the NCAA Tournament begins. Florida opened its bid to Oklahoma City with a drubbing of Florida A&M to move on to the winner’s bracket on Saturday.
But for as long as the season can feel like some times, nearly 60 games of softball this year are about to be defined by what happens in the next four or five games for the Gators.
Florida smashes Florida A&M in NCAA Tournament opener
The Gators looked the way a Regional host is supposed to look in their opener. An Ava Brown double had Florida up 5-0 with no outs in the 2nd inning, and three more runs in the 3rd inning made the eventual run rule victory a formality. Taylor Shumaker hit a home run in the 4th inning for the final score of 12-0.
Keagan Rothrock went 3.0 innings with no runs and no hits allowed before making way for Katelynn Oxley to close things out by the 5th inning.
For Florida, Friday’s opener isn’t what is ultimately going to define the 2026 season. With just one more win, they can reach 50 wins, which they have only achieved once since 2019, but even that isn’t what this program is defined by.
The standard at Florida is OKC or bust, and the road to get there isn’t a guarantee.
Florida will first have to take on the winner of Texas State and Georgia Tech, but that pales in comparison to who could be coming to Gainesville next weekend, should the Gators advance to and host Super Regionals.
As we pointed out earlier in the week, the Gators are slotted to match up with Texas Tech. Vegas betting odds have Florida with the 8th-best odds to win the national title at +1800, which isn’t the best, but still gives Florida a pathway to at least make the WCWS.
The problem is that despite being the No. 11 seed in the tournament, Texas Tech has the second-best odds to win the national title at +300, largely due to star pitcher NiJaree Canady, who helped lead the Red Raiders to the championship series last year, where they took Texas to a game three before finishing as national runner-ups.
Translation:
Florida had an easy afternoon on Friday and did virtually everything right.
Just know that the level of difficulty is about to ramp up very soon.
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