Gators had a front-row seat to history and it wasn’t on a field

Florida Softball took the field on Wednesday in DeLand to face Stetson for a midweek game. The Gators easily took care of business for an 8-2 win. Jocelyn Erickson picked up her 200th RBI of her career, making her just the sixth player in program history to achieve the feat. Olivia Miller was credited with the win, with Leah Stevens and Katelynn Oxley also pitching at least two innings each. Madison Walker also hit a home run.

But the viral moment that emerged from the game wasn’t anything that happened on the field, but rather history that was taking place just a hop, skip, and a throw away from DeLand.

Florida has a front row seat for the Artemis II launch

There was a ton of interest nationwide in the Artemis II launch, given it’s the first time in over 50 years that astronauts have been anywhere near the moon, and this mission has the potential to set the record for the furthest any astronaut has been away from Earth.

Given that Stetson is a little over an hour from the Kennedy Space Center, it gave the Gators a perfect view of the launch. Play was momentarily stopped as players and spectators turned around to catch the flight.

The moment was picked up by Jomboy Media with the caption “When you’re playing softball but you see someone on their way to the moon.” That post now has over 7,000 likes and 278,000 views on X.

People in the comments were pointing out two things:

1. Stetson’s cameras seemed to get a better shot of Artemis II than NASA itself.
2. The announcers seemed clueless as to why everyone was invested in this particular rocket launch.

Even Florida itself had to get a picture. 

With Florida’s win, they are now 34-4 on the season. The Gators will prepare to take on Mississippi State this weekend for a three-game series where the only scheduled rocket launches are hopefully off the bats of Florida hitters smacking home runs.