OKLAHOMA CITY — This one looked entirely too much like some of the games Florida played back in March and April. 

Unfortunately, it was May 30 at the Women's College World Series. 

The fifth-seeded Gators got three times as many hits as No. 13-seed Oklahoma State and star pitcher Kelly Barnhill pitched well enough to put her team in position to succeed in opening-round action Thursday night at USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium. The totality of UF's six hits, however, weren't as loud as the two home runs blasted by Samantha Show, who also did double-duty in the circle and mostly silenced the Florida bats in beating the Gators 2-1 and dumping them into the tournament's loser's bracket. 

"That's kind of how we played all season long," said UF coach Tim Walton, whose team got here with a run of 10 wins over 11 games — including a four-game sweep of the Southeastern Conference Tournament — after a lot of flailing away in the batter's box in the run-up to that hot streak. "It's really hard to win games when the middle of your lineup doesn't give you hits, give you an RBI. It's tough." 

Some numbers: 

• UF's 2, 3 and 4 hitters combined to go 0-for-9. 
• Senior Amanda Lorenz had two hits, including a double in her team's first at-bat of the night, while Jordan Roberts had a solo home run in the second and a single in the seventh. The rest of the team went 2-for-21.
• Four times the Gators got the lead-off batter on base and failed to score; only once did they advance a runner to third in those situations.
• Nine of the Florida's 21 outs did not leave the infield.

There's a reason Florida was last in the SEC and 179th nationally in team average (.264) during the 2019 season.
 
"We didn't have very many productive at-bats," Walton said. "Our outs — they made a couple nice plays, defensively — but our outs just weren't very good. You can have good outs, be productive with your outs, move runners along. We didn't have that." 

Some of that was a credit to Show, who not only held the Gators to the lone run, but walked just one batter. Show also accounted for both Cowgirls runs by smashing those homers, both no-doubt solo shots off Barnhill (one in the first, then the game-winner in the sixth) and both finished off with take-that bat flips as the ball soared into the gorgeous, clear Sooner State night. 

"I missed two pitches to the best hitter on their team," Barnhill said. "She hit it high and far."

Those two bad misses, though, still only accounted for two runs, as the rest of the Cowgirls lineup went 0-for-20 against Barnhill. Those two pitches should not have been the difference, but that's the price the Gators pay for the limited margin of error they give themselves due to the limitations at the plate. 
 
The seventh inning provided a tell-tale example of the Florida offensive struggles.

The Gators got consecutive singles (first from Sophie Reynoso, then from Roberts) to start the inning. That put the tying run at second and winning run at first, with nobody out and slap-hitting Jade Caraway coming to the plate. 

A bunt situation, obviously. Advance the runners. 

Except for one drawback. 

"Jade can't bunt," Walton said afterward.

Caraway, batting .226 with zero sacrifices on the season, took something of a crack at one, though; a "modified version," Walton called it. A soft sort of slash bunt attempt on the first pitch. She missed. Three pitches later, she grounded into a fielder's choice force play at third, leaving runners at first and second. 

Pinch-hitter Jordan Matthews followed with another soft grounder to the right side of the infield, with the runner being cut down at second, leaving Gators on first and third, with two outs and Alex Voss representing their last chance. 

Voss grounded to second to end the game and put the Gators (49-17) into an elimination situation Saturday against SEC rival and regular-season champion Alabama (57-9) at 2:30 p.m. ET. 

"Flush it and be more competitive," Lorenz said of her team's circumstances. "We had six hits, they had two, [but] they had bigger hits than us. We string those together, I think we're sitting up here in a little different mood. We just need to find a way to pass the bat along and have [hits] happen at the same time." 

The Gators will have some time to think about it. The four first-day losers at the WCWS get Friday off, but come back Saturday and must survive the elimination bracket, as the field gets cut in half over four games. 

Desperate times, but also somewhat familiar times, relative to how so much of the season went.

"Great players step up and are great in Oklahoma City. That's the key," Walton said. "We don't do anything fancy. We pitch and play good defense, get a couple hits here or there. It's the personnel we have. I think we've identified exactly who we are. We just have to be a little better version of that on Saturday."