The 2025 season for Florida Softball wasn’t a failure by any means. The Gators won 48 games, earned the No. 3 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, and made it back to the Women’s College World Series. Once in Oklahoma City, though, the Florida couldn’t repeat its 2024 run, and the Gators were bounced after two games.
Entering 2026, Florida finds itself in the top ten of every national preseason poll floating around. But to take the leap from WCWS participant to WCWS champion, the Gators are going to need to rely on one key X-factor throughout the season.
Florida Softball starts its season on Friday
One of the massive storylines that followed the Gators last year was the health of starting pitcher Keagan Rothrock. She missed five weeks last year due to compartment syndrome, and when she returned, it took a while for her to round back into the form that made her the 2024 SEC Freshman of the Year.
Rothrock is back for 2026, and she, along with Jocelyn Erickson and Taylor Shumaker, headline the Gators as the players named to the All-SEC Preseason Team.
Rothrock’s abscense though in 2025 opened the door for Ava Brown and Katelynn Oxley to step up and hold down the fort in the circle. And while Brown and Oxley both wound up with a better ERA on the season than Rothrock, Florida’s staff as a whole struggled to keep the lid on games once things went off the rails, capped off by an 11-3 loss to Tennessee at the WCWS.
Florida finished the 2025 season outside the top 50 in team ERA, and the Gators did not have a pitcher in the top 100 individually for ERA.
All three are back in 2026, and while Plan A is for Rothrock to be healthy and ready to regain her form of 2024, the reality is that Florida’s X-factor for 2026 is going to be whether Brown, Oxley, or FGCU transfer Allison Sparkman can take another step forward and be that crucial 1B pitcher alongside Rothrock if she becomes 1A again.
Because even if Rothrock turns in an All-American season, the format of the WCWS is going to dictate that at some point, Florida has to lean on pitching depth. For as great as Texas Tech pitcher NiJaree Canady was last year, even she ran out of steam by the end.
If it all comes together, Florida might have a case for the best all-around staff in college softball. And if you have the best pitching staff, anything is possible for the 2026 campaign.