Florida Gators

OKLAHOMA CITY — She got the call from the bullpen in the second inning, barely enough time to have savored the smell of the popcorn inside USA Softball Hall of Fame Complex. When Natalie Lugo got to the circle, Florida coach Tim Walton handed her the ball. The Gators already trailed by a run and Oregon State runners stood on each base. The instructions from her coach were simple. The task at hand was not. 

Bases loaded. Nobody out. Keep the ball on the ground. Trust the defense.
 

"All the things I knew already," Lugo said. 

Walton retreated to the UF dugout hoping Lugo and the Gators could minimize the damage of a game that was one big Beavers blast from being broken open. 

"Getting out of that [giving up] up just one run is a really good job; a great job," Walton said. "A phenomenal job is what she did." 

Nine pitches later, Lugo stormed off the mound to a bevy of high fives after mowing down the first three OSU batters she faced. UF came to bat and took the lead with a pair of runs in the second and never looked back, as Lugo and the 14th-seeded Gators took command and finished a 7-1 victory in Thursday night's opening-round play of the NCAA Women's College Series at Hall of Fame Stadium. The victory, UF's sixth in seven tournament games, moved the 14th-seeded Gators (49-17) into the winner's bracket where they face seventh-seeded Oklahoma State (50-12) Saturday at 7 p.m. 

All Lugo did was set down 18 of the 19 batters she faced over her six innings, allow just one hit, walked none and struck out six, including the side in the sixth inning. 

The first Beaver she faced, Kiki Escobar, barreled up a line drive to right, but UF's Cheyenne Lindsey was in perfect position to make the catch and hold the OSU runner at third. Lugo got designated player Xiao Gin to strike out swinging, then Kaylah Nelson to ground to second. 

Phenomenal, for sure. 

"I felt like all my pitches were working pretty well," said Lugo, the fifth-year senior from West Covina, Calif., after improving to 12-5 on the season and dropping her ERA to a team-best 1.86. "When the off-speed is on, I feel I can get a lot of outs pretty quickly, pretty easily, and let my defense work." 

For Lugo, it was yet another gem. How 'bout these stats she's posted in six appearances during the 2022 NCAA Tournament: 14.1 innings, a 0.00 ERA, 14 strikeouts, one walk. 

A trend is developing — Lugo being very much a part of it — and it's happening at the ideal time. 

"Our players are now accepting their roles," Walton said. "They're not dwelling on things that they hope they can be. They're being who they are." And the Gators appear to be morphing into the best version of themselves. Good timing, this being OKC and all, right? 

As a team, Florida hit .257 and averaged 4.0 runs during the 24-game Southeastern Conference season. In 14 of those games, they had six or fewer hits.

That was then. 

This is now. 

In seven NCAA Tournament games, the Gators are hitting .405 and averaging 7.7 runs and 10.7 hits per game — and that's with a 6-0 shutout loss (the team's lone defeat of the tournament) factored in. 

Against the Beavers, who were without ace pitcher Mariah Mazon for non-disclosed reasons, UF lashed out 13 hits, including a homer and triple from Charla Echols and a 3-for-3 night and three runs scored from Lindsey. 

And then there was Avery Goelz.  Goelz, the sophomore first baseman and former Florida Gatorade Player of the Year out of Myakka City, is a career .243 hitter who totaled 12 RBI during the regular season. She has six RBI the last two games, after back-to-back games of with three, and actually accounted for five UF runs Thursday, including a go-ahead pair in the second inning, a few minutes after Lugo worked out of that bases-juiced jam. 

With runners at second and third, Goelz stepped into the box with two outs in that second. She pulled a hard grounder down the first base line that was too hot for Oregon State's Frankie Hammoude, who was credited with an error on what would have been difficult play. Both runners came home to give UF a lead it never surrendered. 

Her next two times up, Goelz hit run-scoring singles — knocking in two in the fifth, another in the sixth — and was not denied the RBI those times. 

"I'm really confident right now," Goelz said. "I feel really good, and it's like, this is it. This is the end of the season, so why not give it all you've got? I just feel like my teammates are behind me, and I have a lot of confidence in them, too." 

That feeling seems to be mutual. Or universal, actually, in the UF locker room. It's like Walton has told his team from way back before the season even began: "Don't tell me what you can't do. Show me what you can do." 

With each game this postseason, the Gators (both individually and collectively) are looking more and more like they think they can do anything.