![Florida outfielder Taylor Shumaker (21) celebrates a home run against Georgia during the third game of the NCAA super regionals softball game in Gainesville, FL on Sunday, May 25, 2025. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_2649,h_1490/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/213/01kh19ssq3azdp20a4dv.jpg "Florida outfielder Taylor Shumaker (21) celebrates a home run against Georgia during the third game of the NCAA super regionals softball game in Gainesville, FL on Sunday, May 25, 2025. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]")
Florida Softball is off and running after a perfect weekend in Tampa. The Gators took part in the USF-Rawlings Invitational and swept the field with a 5-0 weekend. The Gators scored a minimum of five runs in each game and were never in true danger in any of their five wins:
- 7-0 over Illinois State
- 5-1 over Michigan
- 8-0 over Bethune-Cookman
- 11-2 over Kansas
- 6-1 over USF
Florida will have a couple of games against Jacksonville this week before hosting the Florida Classic this upcoming weekend against Marshall, Georgia Tech, and FIU.
These are the three most notable observations on the Gators from their 5-0 weekend.
Florida players in an upgraded role shine
The main returning cast members for the Gators did fine this weekend. Kenleigh Callahan was 8-16 with three walks, Jocelyn Erickson was 7-16 with two walks. Both had a home run, and both had six RBIs over the weekend.
Taylor Shumaker lagged a little behind at 6-17 but also had two home runs and a double to emerge from the weekend with a team leading 1.241 OPS.
But it was the weekend for Cassidy McLellan and Gabi Comia that felt the most significant, as both batted .500 and both wound up with an OPS over 1.000. McLellan and Comia had rotational roles last year and are hoping to prove they are ready for a starting role in 2026.
Pitching staff takes shape
Keagan Rothrock took the bulk of the innings and pitched 17.2 innings, striking out 22 hitters while walking just five. She gave up just three runs the entire weekend, two of which came at the very end of her weekend in the 6th inning against Kansas. For now, given the injury concerns from last year, she looks sharp and ready to go.
But the Gators had 16.1 other innings it had to distribute throughout the weekend, and we saw Ava Brown and Katelyn Oxley look sharp for the majority of those innings. Brown didn’t give up a single hit over the 5.1 innings she pitched across three separate appearances. Oxley made the start against USF and she struggled early to put hitters away, but she didn’t let the game get away from her and she eventually settled it for five strikeouts over four innings of work against USF before Brown came in for three scoreless innings.
Olivia Miller, Allison Sparkman, and Leah Stevens all made apperances for an inning of work each throughout the weekend.
Finding the killshot
Keeping in mind that we are looking at this through the lens of what it will take to make it back to Oklahoma City and make a run once in OKC, the Gators did have several chances to put a formal stamp on things and run rule multiple opponents, but seemed to struggle to find the killshot.
Against Michigan and USF, the Gators had bases loaded with a chance for a massive inning, but couldn’t capitalize. Against Illinois State and Kansas, the Gators had a shot to end things with the run rule but couldn't find the extra run needed.
The good news is that fielding for Florida was pretty clean throughout the week. Last year, the Gators were awful at the start of the year fielding the ball, but this past weekend they only had two errors through five games in Tampa.