Florida Gators

OKLAHOMA CITY — Tim Walton stood about three feet away. Florida's softball coach raised his right hand to eye level and closed his four fingers against his thumb. 

"It does this," he said. 

First, Walton jerked his hand upward. Then he slightly swirled it. Then he dropped it in one direction. Then the next. Trying to follow his fingers was like focusing on a pesky fly buzzing around your face. 

And those fingers represented a Kelly Barnhill pitch. 

"It wiggles. It jumps. It moves. It hops. It breaks. It's basically an optical illusion," Walton said. "It's coming at you and can do three things: strike-strike; strike-higher-strike; or strike-ball." 

Translation: The pitch -- which is approaching at 70-plus miles per hour, the equivalent of 100 mph in baseball -- can look like a strike and be one; it can look like a strike, then rise to a higher spot in the strike zone; or it can look like a strike and then sail completely out the zone. 

Now, if reading that description was confusing, then imagine being in the batter's box when Barnhill rocks and delivers from the circle 43 feet away. Better yet, if you haven't seen the 2017 USA Collegiate Softball Player of the Year tune into ESPN Thursday when she unleashes her riseball fury for the top-seeded and top-ranked Gators (55-8) in their Women's College World Series opener against No. 9-seed Texas A&M (47-11) at USA Hall of Fame Stadium. The game will mark the WCWS debut for Barnhill, who three years ago in Marietta, Ga., was one of the most coveted pitching prospects in the sport's history. 

Now, she'll get her spin on on the game's grandest stage. 

"It's so surreal to be here," Barnhill said before the team's on-site practice Wednesday morning. "I can't even imagine what it's going to be like walking onto the field. It's something I've been dreaming about pretty much my whole life."

But? 

"The goal was always to get here, but now that we're here, we want to win," she said. 

She's struck out virtually thousands in her life to get to this point. This season alone, she's rung up 333 versus just 34 walks on her way to a 24-3 record, plus NCAA-leading marks in ERA (0.36), hits per seven innings (2.74) and strikeouts per seven innings (13.4) while recording 12 shutouts and holding opposing hitters to a .117 average. 

Those statistics were amassed in the mighty Southeastern Conference, which put all 13 of its softball programs in the 64-team NCAA field, with two others (LSU and A&M joining UF) reaching the World Series, as well. None of the teams in OKC, however, faced Barnhill during her dominant sophomore season. 

Florida junior second baseman Nicole DeWitt has spent the past four months standing behind Barnhill and watching the ball dance by bedazzled batters. 

"It's insane. It's absolutely crazy," DeWitt said. "She has this one pitch — and no one knows how she throws it — that literally starts to rise, then comes at you, then goes back over the plate. We have no idea what it is, but it makes people look so dumb." 

Added volunteer assistant coach Aubree Munro, the former UF star who caught Barnhill during her rookie season: "She can throw a rise ball to three different heights, and I don't know if it's on purpose or what — I just know it works. She throws pitches that look the same and do different things. You think it's here, it's going there. And she throws hard too, so as a hitter you have to deal with velocity and movement. That's a killer combination." 

And she's been killing it for going on a decade now. 
 
Young Kelly first gave soccer a try at the age of five, but wasn't a big fan of all the running. A couple years later, it was on to softball, where she toyed some at first base and in the outfield. Her teams weren't very good and that frustrated her enough that she wanted a bigger stake in the outcomes. 

Teach me to pitch, she asked her father. 

Jeter Barnhill, a West Point graduate, played baseball in his youth, so he knew and appreciated the game. He recalls fondly the day he dragged a big bucket on the field, turned it upside down and planted his backside on its bottom. 

"Feels like I've been sitting on that bucket ever since," Jeter said. "I swear, I've seen almost every pitch she's thrown from about the age of 10." 

Between dad and private lessons from her youth pitching coach, Kelly learned how to practice with a disciplined efficiency rare among pre-adolescents. She also came to a realization. 

"I threw a little differently than everybody else," she said. "A lot harder." 

She didn't always know where it was going — walk, walk, strikeout, hit batter, walk, five strikeouts in a row, yada, yada — but it was clear where she was going. Barnhill continued to excel and she eventually got a better handle of her control. 

How much better? 

• 2015 Georgia Gatorade Player of the Year 
• Led Pope High to the Class 6A state championship, firing a no-hitter in the title game. 
• All told, Barnhill threw 22 no-hitters in her career, including one when she fanned all 21 batters she faced. 
• Left Pope with a state-record 535 all-time strikeouts. 
• Amassed a 4.275 grade-point average. 

Barnhill had her choice of any softball program in the country, but because of that last number (the GPA) she had her sights set on Stanford. Everyone else was in second. That was her dream school, until the Cardinal fired Coach John Rittman in May of her junior season. Barnhill had forged a strong relationship with Rittman during the recruiting process and when she took her official visit to Palo Alto — to see a new coach — it wasn't the same. 

Around that time, Jeter Barnhill had a talk with Walton. The race was dead even. 

"If it comes down to recruiting, we've got this," Walton told him. 

It did. And they did. 

"It was a big deal when she committed because we all had seen her in travel ball," DeWitt said. "We were like, 'Oh wow! We're getting the grunting pitcher who wears that face mask!' "

Barnhill signed with UF in the fall of her senior year, then tallied the bulk of those aforementioned other-worldly prep statistics on her way out. As a freshman for the Gators, Barnhill was expected to make a major impact on a program that had won the last two NCAA titles and on a staff already armed with junior Delanie Gourley and sophomore Aleshia Ocasio, both of whom had taken successful turns in the circle at OKC. Barnhill put together All-America numbers, going 15-1 with a 1.36 ERA — and was the third-best pitcher on the staff. 

Ocasio (0.77) and Gourley (0.80) finished second and third nationally in ERA. 

The duo, however, were beaten on back-to-back nights in Super Regional play by Georgia, ending UF's run of championships. The Gators had a 2-1 lead on the Bulldogs in the bottom of the seventh in Game 2 and were one strike away from a rubber third game to go to OKC when Ocasio surrendered a walk-off homer for a 3-2 loss. 

Barnhill had just finished her warm-ups. She was going to pitch the third game later that day. 

Instead, she had to wait to a year for that big next moment. A summer hurling for USA Softball (she pitched in front of 33,000 in Tokyo last summer) and further focusing on her craft provided a huge springboard into her second season. 

"Kelly has a very strong lower body, which is where she gets her velocity," Jeter said. "But her determination may be even stronger."

Barnhill was given the ball in Game 1 of the 2017 Super Regional against Alabama last week, but her two throwing errors on consecutive plays — sacrifice bunts back to the pitcher — accounted for a trio of unearned runs. The Gators lost 3-0 and were one defeat from elimination. 

"It was one of those things, it just happened, no need to dwell on it," Barnhill said. "I got to the field early the next day, worked on my throws, worked on staying low. I didn't have to do too much extra. I mean, I can make that throw a thousand times in practice. In that one pressure situation, it got away from me. It was time to just refocus." 

But any chance for a Barnhill do-over rested with Gourley. All the gritty senior did was hurl a four-hit, 2-0 shutout that forced a decisive third game. Barnhill got the ball, threw a two-hitter, stuck out 12 and posted a 2-1 win that sent the Gators -- and her wicked stuff -- to the NCAA's softball showcase. 
 
And she's far better prepared for the moment than a year ago. 

"Her confidence has totally changed from last season. You can see it," UF pitching coach Jennifer Rocha said. "The SEC season is a grind. You're taking the best shot from everybody and she wasn't used to getting hit. Your pitches have to develop. Location is important. She had to learn to control the corners. So she sort of thought about the things she could do better. How to attack the strike zone more? How to control her pitches better?" 

Barnhill came back stronger, both physically in those powerful legs, and mentally, with a toughness Walton last week likened to Kryptonite. 

"Her location and mechanics are so much better, but confidence is really the source of everything she's doing better," Walton said. "She's confident she's not going to get hit. She's confident she's going to throw a pitch in a certain location. She's had more success because she's gone out and had more success — and I've given her the ball more because of that. She's not going out there hoping she's going to throw her good stuff."

She's just doing it. And that's no optical illusion. 

Walton, though, won't rule out a higher power at work.  

"I have no problem saying this," Walton smiled. "I just think God tapped Kelly on the shoulder and gave her a gift."

Time to unwrap it in OKC. 

Wiggles and all.