GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Tim Walton texted his "gassed" senior standout pitcher, Kelly Barnhill, early Saturday morning, a couple hours after the Florida Gators had dropped a nearly four-hour extra-inning marathon to Tennessee to even their best-of-three NCAA Super Region series at a game each. Barnhill, spectacular through the postseason, gave everything she had — one day after a complete-game victory in Game 1 — before being lifted after back-to-back walks in the ninth inning. She then watched from the dugout as the Lady Vols won it with a base-loaded walk off UF's second reliever. 

Walton, obviously, was concerned with how Barnhill felt physically, mentally and emotionally, given a decisive Game 3 for a berth in the Women's College World Series was about 13 hours away. Walton knew his trainer had provided Barnhill with postgame cupping treatments and given her a NormaTec recovery machine to take home to treat both her arms and legs. 

You know what else Walton knew? 

"I walked out of the press conference knowing she was going to pitch [Sunday]," he said.

Like there was any doubt.

Those words (accompanied by a big smile) came during Walton's Sunday postgame meeting with the media after Barnhill gave the Gators another stellar eight innings and kept the Lady Vols at bay long enough for junior Jaimie Hoover to shake off three earlier strikeouts and deliver an RBI single that scored Amanda Lorenz for the winning walk-off run in a 2-1 eight-inning Super Game 3 win at Pressly Stadium. Was Walton concerned that Barnhill had thrown 280 pitchers over 15 1/3 innings on back-to-back nights? Very. But guess what? 

He also knows Barnhill very well. 

"I told him I wanted to start," Barnhill said. "I just knew, if there was a chance it was going to our last game of the season, I wanted to be in control. I wanted to go out and give my best stuff. I know I didn't have that [Saturday], so I wanted to do that for my team in this game."
 
So at 2:15 p.m. Sunday — with game-time temperatures at 98 degrees and not a cloud in the sky — Barnhill walked to the circle and proceeded to hurl eight more innings, giving up a single run (more on that in a minute) and just four hits, while striking out seven and walking one. When the infield dust finally settled after UF's standing group hug of Hoover the hero, Barnhill's three-day, Super Region stats showed 23 1/3 innings (and 383 total pitches) over roughly 44 hours, four runs, 17 hits allowed, 19 strikeouts, eight walks and two very significant victories. 

[Note: She faced all but two Tennessee batters over the three days]
  
"She's shown toughness," Walton said. "How many times in her career have you seen her, when someone gets on base, the wheels come off a little bit?" 

A bunch, actually. In this one, Barnhill cruised into the seventh with a one-run lead, only to serve up a solo rocket homer from Haley Bearden on the first pitch of the inning to tie the game 1-1. And, yes, in times during her magnificent, record-setting UF career, those kinds of moments have rattled her. 

This time? 

She set down the next six UT batters in order. 

"Part of the game," Barnhill said of the homer. "Made a mistake. Flush it. Move on. Reset."

Which brings us to Hoover, who just as well could have uttered those very same words. 

She stepped into the box in the UF eighth Sunday having struck out three times. That's why Walton, after Lorenz stroked a one-out double to put the winning run in scoring position in the eighth, bypassed both due-up Kendyl Lindaman and on-deck Hannah Adams to speak with Hoover and pump her up. 

"I told her, 'You're going to have a chance here,' " he said. "All we need is a single." 

Hoover was laser-focused. 

"He told me to be myself," she said. "Told me to go up there and do what I know I can do, don't let the moment get too big and hit like I know how to hit."
 
UT starter Ashley Rogers had made Hoover look really bad with a couple change-ups in previous at-bats, but the off-speed pitch Rogers threw her in the eighth was a never-a-doubt rocket-line-drive to left that touched off quite the celebration at KSP, as Lorenz, fittingly, trotted in from third on the final play in this place she's loved and called home the last four seasons. 

"The game doesn't know she was 0-for-3. The game has no idea," an emotional Lorenz said afterward. "That's what's so cool about postseason and about the game we play. No one knows, no one cares and no one is going to remember that she was 0-for-3. All they're going to remember is her walk-off hit."

Added Walton: "One of her best swings of the year." 

And it prompted one of the best scenes of the year. Now, the Gators' next scene will be in Oklahoma City, where Barnhill will have three full days of rest before facing Oklahoma State on Thursday night in the first round of WCWS.

Guess what? 

"There's a pretty good chance she'll pitch Thursday, too,'' Walton said.

Like there's any doubt.