Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Florida softball team has played just nine "true" home games to date, which is half the number of neutral-site games and only two more than its seven road games. 

For the Gators and their devoted followers at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium, this weekend should make up for lost time. 

No. 1 and two-time reigning national champion UF (33-1, 8-1) plays host to Southeastern Conference rival and sixth-ranked Alabama (29-6, 3-3) in a series starting Friday that could go a long way toward determining the league champion. Yes, it's only the first weekend in April, but it has been either the Gators or Crimson Tide who have won the previous eight SEC regular-season crowns (dating to 2008), not to mention three of the last four NCAA titles. 

The two programs met in the 2014 Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City, where UF swept 'Bama in the best-of-three championship series to claim the first national crown in school history. 

"There are teams in the SEC you want to beat because you don't like them, they bug you," senior catcher Aubree Munro said. "But when we play Alabama, there's a mutual respect. We want to beat Alabama because we know they are a great team and a great program — and beating them means something. You just know it's going to be a good game." 

In this case, a good weekend, also. Probably an emotional and nostalgic one, as well. 

 

Some of the greatest names ever to come through the program — Stacey Nelson, Ali Gardiner, Francesca Enea, Kelsey Bruder, Hannah Rogers and Lauren Haeger, to list a few — will be back in town for alumni weekend, an occasion usually celebrated during the fall season. This year, the Gators will parade their past for the fans during the most anticipated home series of the spring. 

Want a seat? Get there early. 

"I used to come here for games as a little girl and grew up cheering for those players — and now they've become my friends," said senior third baseman Taylore Fuller, out of Chiefland, Fla., some 35 miles from home plate at KSP. "To say that your idols have become your friends, and will be out there cheering for you, that's kind of a dream for me."

"I know a lot of girls are excited about it," said Megan Bush, the former superstar infielder for four WCWS teams and now the color analyst for UF radio broadcasts. "And they'll get to see some great softball."

There could also be some tears. 

Heather Braswell, the pediatric cancer patient "adopted" by the team through the Friends of Jaclyn Foundation in 2009, will be remembered when her mother, Terri, throws out the first pitch of Saturday's game. The story of Heather and the Gators has been well chronicled over the years. She's the reason the Florida players wear the sunflowers in their hair, twirlrally Twizzlers and chow watermelon Sour Patch Kids in the dugout. 

Heather came to the Gators when she was 12. Her cancer went into remission, then returned. The team was with her up until she died in March 2014. Three months later, Florida won its first national championship. 

In her memory, both Florida and Alabama will wear yellow visors Saturday as part of pediatric cancer awareness. 

"I don't think you can put it all into words," Terri Braswell said. "It's priceless, what they meant to Heather and what they mean to us." 

Eventually, the fanfare will give way to softball. The Gators, in a tie with Kentucky atop the league standings and two games up on Auburn and Tennesseee, aren't hitting the ball with the kind of power displayed in years past (their 25 home runs rank 10th in the SEC), but they're certainly hitting it well enough (.336 as a team) without one player ranked in the league's top 20 for average. Where Florida wins games, though, is with the best pitching and defense in the country. 

Armed with the three-headed monster of sophomore Aleshia Ocasio, junior Delanie Gourley and freshman Kelly Barnhill, UF's combined ERA sits at 0.78, nearly a half-run better then next-best Auburn in the league. All three rank among the top nine in the conference for ERA and collectively are allowing teams to bat just .150 against them.

So just imagine if the bats come around for this team. This one-loss team. 

Coach Tim Walton said his squad's greatest challenge might be getting the players to accept that they're making outs at a rate, individually, they're not used to. It's OK. 

"I think our offense has to get better for each individual in the lineup to feel normal, to feel excitable, to feel worthy," Walton said. "They need to realize there's so much failure that goes into it and so much preparation that goes into getting them out; there's so much that goes into dealing with the letdown some of the times — and you can see it in their faces. I saw it last weekend at LSU." 

Some context: That would be the LSU team that came to UF last year and took two of three and did so with some big, booming bats. Those Tigers, like UF, also advanced to WCWS and were eventually eliminted. In last weekend's series, Florida collected just seven hits in the first two games against the No. 7 team in the country. The Gators won both by 3-0 shutouts. Then they got 10 hits in the finale in a 6-2 victory.

For the sweep. 

This team is phenomenal. They'll be looking for a weekend to match.