Florida Gators

OKLAHOMA CITY — It's hard to fathom, but Florida's bats have reduced Kelly Barnhill to a supporting-cast role at the Women's College World Series. 

Oh, and Barnhill's ERA here is 0.00. 

More on her later. 

Meanwhile, chew on these digits: two games, 17 hits, 15 runs. 

Those are the aggregate offensive tallies for top-seeded UF after Friday night's 7-0 mashing of LSU, the second Southeastern Conference opponent to be dismantled by Florida in as many days at USA Hall of Fame Stadium. The Gators, who came to OKC hitting .229 in NCAA Tournament play after scoring four runs and batting .167 in their three Super Regional games last week, pounded a trio of Tigers pitchers for nine hits, including homers from junior catcher Janell Wheaton and junior first baseman Kayli Kvistad. This on the heels of Thursday's eight-hit, 8-0 demolition job of Texas A&M.

"I can't say enough about the lineup, just really finally hitting a stride," UF coach Tim Walton said. "I think more than anything, [we've] just gained a little bit of confidence in going up there and actually looking like we're trying to get some hits." 

With the win, the program's 12th in its last 13 WCWS games dating to its back-to-back NCAA titles of 2014 and '15, the Gators (57-8) advanced to Sunday's semifinals to face one of the survivors from Saturday's four-game elimination round. One UF win there and it's back to the championship series. 
 
Walton called a Saturday day off at the WCWS the "greatest position to be in." And it is. That means some team (maybe Washington, maybe UCLA, maybe A&M again) will have to beat Florida twice on Sunday, which means having to beat Barnhill. 

Again, more on her later. 

For the Gators, the story of the last two days have been the sudden jolt of offensive production. 

After the rout of A&M, UF's coach and players talked about hitting being contagious. Against the Aggies, at least seven different Gators got hits. Against the Tigers (48-21) that number again was seven, including senior right fielder Chelsea Herndon. The game was scoreless when Herndon stepped into the box with runners on first and second with one out in the fourth inning. 

At that point, she was 0-for-12 for the NCAA Tournament. 

"You just have to stay calm," Herndon said, adding she didn't allow any thoughts of recent at-bats to clutter her mind. "When I saw a good pitch, I took a hack at it." 

The ball roped down the right field line, stayed fair and cleared the bases for a 2-0 lead.

"We just needed that one hit to get us going, and Chelsea is the one that got it done for us," Wheaton said. "She's the one that started the rally and, like you said, hitting is contagious, so Chelsea is the one that got it done for us today." 

I didn't say it, I just repeated what was said Thursday. 

And the Gators, in turn, repeated those red-hot ways. 

"I talked to our team about it being a simple game, and I think at the end of the day, it is," Walton said. "You've got to catch the ball, you've got to throw the ball, you've got to hit the ball, but execution is the key, and I thought we executed really, really well tonight. We did a lot of nice things [and] some go noticed, some go unnoticed." 

The noticed? How 'bout when third baseman Aleshia Ocasio took a nose dive into the photographers' well to snare a foul ball and secure a second out in the third inning with a runner on third. It was ESPN Top 10 stuff. Ocasio also gloved a couple sharply hit balls with runners on base in the sixth and turned them into frighteningly routine-looking fielder's choice plays. 
 
The unnoticed? 

OK, back to Barnhill, the national player of the year. 

I'm kidding, of course. 

All she did was fire a complete-game shutout to run her WCWS scoreless-innings streak to 11. She surrendered just two hits (one to the second batter she faced), struck out eight and worked her way out of whatever trouble — four leadoff runners reached base — came about. 

"I didn't have quite as many butterflies as [Thursday]," said Barnhill, who made her WCWS debut against A&M. "My defense was amazing, Aleshia's plays were mind-blowing and our offense just went out there and got it done again. It's so exciting to be in the dugout, on my feet cheering and bouncing up and down." 

The pre-WCWS narrative for this team put the spotlight almost exclusively on Barnhill and senior Delanie Gourley, the best 1-2 pitching tandem in college softball. The Gators were the tournament's No. 1 seed because they had a pair of shutdown starting pitchers, which gives any team a chance. The back end of that narrative focused on UF's Achilles heel. 

Hitting. 

Now those two flamethrowers in the circle have red-hot bats to complement them. 

Fire is contagious, also. 

"Softball is a game where you're going to fail [hitting] more than you succeed, that's just part of the game," Herndon said. "You got to shake it off, go to your next at-bat and take your hacks." 

That's probably what the next UF opposing coach will say about facing Barnhill. 

And it'll only be half the problem.