Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Three summers ago, Florida softball coach Tim Walton served as assistant coach on the U.S. Junior Women's National Team. In a meeting with the staff, the coaches were breaking down a very talented roster chocked full of versatile players, and debating who should play where. Nicole DeWitt, who had just finished her freshman season at UF, wasn't just part of the conversation, but rather the start of the conversation. 

"I didn't even have to bring her name up," Walton said. 

DeWitt, it was decided, would be Team USA's second baseman. Period. That was pretty interesting, considering DeWitt, a travel ball prodigy from Garden Grove, Calif., had spent nearly her entire rookie collegiate season playing outfield for the Gators on their way to the program's second straight national championship. The coaches wanted her at second base because in just three practices they saw an animated and talkative leader who was a step ahead of her teammates. The ideal defensive backbone. 

And a pretty good hitter, too. 
 
"Ever since I was young, I just played all over the place," DeWitt said. "I always wanted to be the one that was in the game, all the time, every single play. Along the way, I just learned to play, you know, wherever." 

Like left field as a freshman, mostly second base as a sophomore and junior, and then over to third base as a senior, the spot she'll be this weekend — and where she started all 61 games — when the fourth-ranked Gators (53-8) open their best-of-three Super Regional series Thursday night against Southeastern Conference foe Texas A&M (43-16) at Pressly Stadium. 

"If Coach Walton wanted to put me behind the plate, I'd have done that, too," she said. 

He didn't. Not surprisingly, during DeWitt's sensational (and fluid) career, things have worked out magnificently and her sights are now set on ending her career the same way it began: With a Women's College World Series title in Oklahoma City. The Gators, though not great on offense (61st nationally in batting average), have arguably the nation's best 1-2 pitching punch in Kelly Barnhill and Aleshia Ocasio, and back up that lethal pair with a defense ranked second nationally in fielding percentage (0.984), in great part because DeWitt is there to keep everyone on their toes.

There isn't one thing she does better than anything else. Instead, she just does it all. 

"Just the ultimate softball player," Walton said. "Knows how to play, always been on good teams, always in a quality environment to improve her game. Just really, really good." 

How good? 

DeWitt will show up at the ballpark Thursday with a career-best average of .348, to go with 54 runs scored, a team-best and career-high 14 home runs, and 55 RBI. All time, she's worked her way into the program's top 10 in runs (5th with 193), RBI (8th/165), sacrifice flies (4th/10), hit-by-pitches (2nd/72) and walks (8th/131). 

Here's how 2018 SEC Player of the Year Amanda Lorenz described her teammate, friend and fellow-Californian: "Competitor. Savvy. Game-changer." 

So what is the origin of those adjectives?

DeWitt had a sister, Krystian, four years older, who excelled in softball. 

"Nicole wanted to be like her," father Ron DeWitt said. 

Actually, she wanted to be better. 

At four years old, Nicole started in T-ball, naturally. Rules dictated that each batter choose between hitting off the tee or being pitched to. Nicole chose the pitcher. The participation-friendly rules also sent every player to the plate once an inning, but allowed each batter to advance just one base — except whoever batted last. That hitter got to run until she was thrown out. Nicole always wanted to bat last. 

"She would hit the ball out of the infield and run so fast that she would catch up to the players in front of her and move them along," dad recalled. "Even as a four-year-old, she was coaching her teammates." 

Little Nicole was picked for her league's 8-and-under all-star team, but her parents did not let her participate. Why? She was only five. In time, though, Ron and Jackie gladly loosened the reigns on their youngest daughter and the track to softball stardom was underway. 

"If you played travel ball in California, you knew about Nicole," said UF senior catcher Janell Wheaton, who hailed from San Dimas, Calif. 
 
Eventually, DeWitt became a standout for the Firecrackers, one of the top travel teams in California, if not the country. DeWitt played everywhere for her team (even pitched some) and all the time. Like the tournament when the Firecrackers were beaten on a Friday night and dumped into the loser's bracket. Their first game the next day was at 7 a.m. Their last game, their seventh of the day, started at 10 p.m.

At some point in between, DeWitt's coach questioned her about needing a break. Her response: "Why would you even ask me that?" 

She played every inning of every game (seven of them, all victories), and did the same the next day on the way to the tournament title game. 

DeWitt was on every top-flight college program's radar by the time she entered Pacifica High School. Her sister was playing at Wright State in Ohio, so the family spotlight was now beaming her way. It was the summer before her sophomore year when the Firecrackers came to Orlando for a tournament at Wide World of Sports that DeWitt and her father took a drive to Gainesville to check at the UF campus. 

"I fell in love with it right away," DeWitt said. "Everything about it." 

She fell for Walton, too. And vice versa. 

Back in Garden Grove, all the talk in the DeWitt household was "Gators, Gators, Gators." DeWitt wanted to commit as soon as they got home, but her father urged other visits. She resisted, but agreed to take a trip to Washington, another powerhouse program. Their whole time in Seattle, however, her mind was on Florida. 

They went home and called Walton that week, as the Gators chalked up yet another California recruiting coup. 

When DeWitt got to Gainesville in the fall of 2014, UF was three months removed from winning its first national championship. The roster was loaded with returnees, especially in the infield, but the competitor in DeWitt did not allow for curtailed first-year expectations. 

"Obviously, you come in thinking you want to play and you're going to play, but I knew it was going to be difficult because middle infield was Katie Medina and Kelsey Stewart," DeWitt said of the wicked shortstop/second baseman combo that had just helped the Gators to an NCAA title. "I knew I was going to be moved around, and I was OK with that because it meant Coach Walton trusted me." 

Walton, in fact, reminded DeWitt that he'd once seen her play the outfield in a tournament several years earlier. DeWitt, though, could not even remember doing so, but gladly took her place in left field for the Gators and started there 36 games as a freshman on the way to hitting .331 and returning to OKC. It was in Florida's third game of the WCWS, against SEC rival Auburn, that DeWitt came to bat in extra innings and delivered the game-winning RBI on a slap single to left that scored the winning run and put the Gators in the championship round for the second straight year. 
 
The image of DeWitt delivering the hit and leaping into the air as she rounded second made for a "SportsCenter Top 10" moment, but also became an enduring one for both the UF program and the DeWitt household. 

"Like movie script stuff," Ron Dewitt said. 

That was just the beginning of her Florida story. Now, it's reaching the end. 

Along the way, DeWitt has done everything asked, played wherever asked, and grown into yet another program stalwart. Regardless of the outcome of these next two or three games, she'll be playing her final ones on the UF home field she's come to adore. The goal is to make sure they're not her final games in a UF uniform. 

Florida played Texas A&M three times during the regular season, and swept those games by a combined score of 23-4, including a 10-0 victory. Those outcomes, DeWitt was quick to point out, mean nothing relative to this Super Regional. 

"We're not going to concentrate on how we beat them last time," DeWitt said. "We're looking to focus on how we can beat them this time." 

Sounds like a coach. 

Or, in her coach's words, an "ultimate softball player."