Florida's season ended with a 2-0 loss to Oklahoma on 'Elimination Saturday' at the Women's College World Series.
Oklahoma Ace at Her Best in Ending UF's Season
Saturday, June 2, 2018 | Softball, Chris Harry
The Gators' lost 2-0 to All-American Paige Parker and the two-time reigning national champion Sooners.
At Sooners flame thrower Paige Parker.
"I told our team after the game there's not a whole lot you can do when you've got a pitcher [that's] 'strike one' all day long," UF coach Tim Walton said. "Not 'strike one' with one pitch, but 'strike one inside-outside curve, change-up, bounced the change-up when she wanted to, featuring a little bit of a rise. She was good. I give her all the credit. She really did a wonderful job."
Parker, the four-time All-American and four-time Big 12 Pitcher of the Year, allowed a Kayli Kvistad single in the first inning, a Janell Wheaton single in the seventh inning, and basically nothing in between, on her way to hurling seven shutout innings, striking out eight, walking just two and allowing no — zero — UF runners to as much as reach second base. Those digits would have been impressive enough on their own, but Parker earlier in the day also pitched a 2-0, two-hit elimination-game shutout of Arizona State just to get her team its date against the Gators.
"For her to have an outing like that, after playing Arizona State, against a team like Florida that's such a well-rounded team in every area, it was one for the ages, in my mind," OU coach Patty Gasso said of Parker, who handed UF just its fourth shutout of the season, and first since April 28 against LSU. "It was not only just masterful, but it was a will to find a way to win, which fed into our team. They were going to find a way to win."
Parker left the ballpark late Saturday with a 31-3 record on the season, an ERA of 0.77 and an eye toward Sunday's WCWS semifinals.
The Gators left with a 56-11 record … and their season over.
"Lots of emotions, obviously," senior pitcher and outfielder Aleshia Ocasio said.
The exact same words could have come from Kvistad, Wheaton or Nicole DeWitt, her fellow seniors, all of whom were at the post-game podium in their swan-game as Gators. What a whirlwind week it had been. The Jordan Matthews' dramatic three-run homer to walk-off Texas A&M at last Saturday's Gainesville Super Regional; returning to OKC for the second straight season; the 11-3 gutting of rival Georgia in WCWS first-round play Thursday; and Friday's controversial, gut-punch 6-5 loss to UCLA, keyed by the call at home plate that was all the social media rage in Gator Nation the previous 18 hours.
Walton, though, didn't think the events of Friday carried over to Saturday.
"I thought it was business as usual," Walton said of the pre-game routine. "We did the same thing we've always done."
But had to face a generational pitcher who was at the top of her game.
After the Kvistad single in the first, Parker walked one each in the second and third, the latter a one-out pass to Lorenz, who after DeWitt struck out was caught trying to steal second. The next 10 UF batters went down in order, with Wheaton clubbing her single with one down in the seventh. Jordan Roberts struck out and Jaimie Hoover grounded out to end the game.
"She just pounded the zone from strike one, and the very first pitch," Wheaton said. "She had the advantage of her change-up working. I think that was key, changing the speeds and just pounding the zone and changing the different planes of her pitches."
Added DeWitt: "Great pitcher. Give her credit for that. She just kept mixing where she was throwing it, mixing in and out, throw that change-up — and that change-up is pretty dirty."
In the end, it threw dirt on another spectacular UF softball season. And, like Walton always says, they're all great seasons if they end in OKC.
And here, when they end, they end against great players. On this day, Paige was at her best.
Players Mentioned
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