Florida unraveled at the worst time against Texas Tech and has its season on the brink

When the bracket came out for the NCAA Tournament, most knew that while Florida shouldn’t have a difficult time navigating its Regional, their Super Regional had a chance to bring some real problems to Gainesville. Texas Tech looked vulnerable in their own Regional, but flipped a switch and reverted back to the team that finished as national runner-up last season.

A combination of errors, pitching woes, and the return of a ghost from the past resulted in a game one loss to Texas Tech that has Florida’s season on the brink of elimination.

Florida falls to Texas Tech in game one of Super Regionals

Things started well for the Gators as they were able to strike first in the first inning. Taylor Shumaker walked, Ava Brown singled, and then Kendall Grover singled to make it 1-0. 

Then Florida’s defense essentially fell apart.

Kenleigh Cahalan was charged with an error to open the fourth inning, but it looked like Florida was going to be okay after getting the next two batters out. Then the doubles parade for Texas Tech took effect, capped by former Gator Mia Williams making it 3-1 in favor of Texas Tech. The latter two of the doubles were hit at Cahalan, who had a shot at both on tough bounces, but both skipped away.

Keagan Rothrock was lifted after the fourth inning of Olivia Miller, and it did not go well at all. Miller made it just 0.2 innings before she was lifted after giving up two home runs that led to four more runs to make it 7-1 in favor of Texas Tech.

Is now a good time to mention that Texas Tech didn’t even start ace pitcher NiJaree Canady and instead opted for Kaitlyn Terry in game one? 

It really did feel like, at this point, that game one was going to be a culmination of the fears we had about Florida heading into Super Regionals, that Florida hitters were so power swing happy that when faced with top-end pitching, they didn’t know how to scratch out runs.

Combine that with the fact that the loss of Ava Brown as a pitcher this season really put a damper on Florida’s pitching depth, which just couldn’t keep a lid on things to let the bats catch up.

Reverse Uno comeback comes up short

Florida bats did eventually wake up as Brown did hit a two-run home run in the 5th inning to give Florida some life. Then Townsen Thomas got going back-to-back with a solo home run. Madison Walker also hit a home run in the bottom of the 6th, but that was paired with Florida giving a run back in the top of the 6th.

Then, in the bottom of the 6th, with Florida trailing 8-5, NiJaree Canady did come in to pitch, and after letting two batters on, she got two outs, and it looked like she was going to shut the door on the Gators.

Ava Brown had other ideas and smacked a three-run shot to somehow tie things back up at 8-8 heading into the 7th inning.

But then the main character from game one had one last final say to put Florida away. Mia Williams had been hit by a pitch twice previously, and her dad, former Gator Jason Williams, had even been escorted out of the stadium at one point. 

Mia Williams took a 1-0 pitch and launched it over the left field fence to make it 10-8 in favor of Texas Tech.

Florida got a leadoff single in the bottom of th 7th but that is all they could muster.

In the end, the main takeaway is that Florida scored eight runs, and it still wasn’t good enough. As it stands, Florida will now need to beat Texas Tech twice on back-to-back days if it hopes to return to the WCWS. First pitch on Saturday is at 12:30 PM on ABC.

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