OKLAHOMA CITY — The Florida bats were red hot when they arrived here for the NCAA Women's College World Series and stayed that way Thursday when the 14th-seeded Gators dispatched of unseeded Oregon State behind their sixth double-digit base hit effort in seven tournament games.

The Gators got to USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium for Saturday night's winner's bracket showdown against seventh-seeded Oklahoma State clubbing a robust .405 in NCAA play and averaging 7.7 runs over their seven games. In the six wins, those numbers ballooned to .441 and 9.0 runs, respectively. 

The one loss in the mix, though, was a 6-0 setback against third-seeded Virginia Tech in Game 1 of the Blacksburg Super Regional, when the Gators were handcuffed by second-team All-American Keely Rochard, who limited UF to just four hits that day.

Florida's 2-0 loss to No. 7-seed Oklahoma State looked a lot like that one. 

It was another All American who did the trick, too. This one a first-teamer. Fourth-year junior Kelly Maxwell was superb in blanking the Gators behind a three-hitter. Maxwell, a lefty, struck out nine, walked only two, at one point set down 15 batters in a row and let only three UF base-runners into scoring position in dumping Florida (49-18) into the loser's bracket and a Sunday 3 p.m. elimination game against fifth-seeded UCLA (49-9). 

"I thought we played hard," UF coach Tim Walton said. "There were just a couple things they did better than we did." 

There's a phrase that's tossed around in bat-and-ball sports. The one about sometimes just "tipping your cap" in the direction of a player after a great performance. So, yes, lift a lid for Maxwell, who has made a bunch of teams look bad this season on the way to posting a 22-4 record, a 1.11 ERA, with 302 strikeouts and just 62 walks. 

Florida's pitchers, obviously, threw good enough to win. Freshman Lexie Delbrey, making her fourth consecutive start, gave up one run and four hits over 2.1 innings before (again) yielding a difficult situation to reliever Natalie Lugo, who (again) for the second straight game escaped a bases-loaded jam and kept the OSU lead at just 1-0 after three innings.  In the fourth, Lugo allowed her first run of the tournament (an RBI single to former UF teammate Julia Cottrill), but the margin was still just 2-0. The way the Gators had been swinging the bats of late, no big deal, right? 

Except for one thing. 

"Their pitcher was on fire," UF coach Tim Walton said. "She's a really good pitcher, we knew that coming," said second baseman Hannah Adams, who accounted for two of UF's five baserunners, both times on walks. "She did a really nice job of mixing her location, mixing speeds. You couldn't guess a pitch that was coming." 

And with seven of UF's nine starters hitting from the left side, she was even deadlier. 

"The left-on-left was pretty tough. We knew that," UF coach Tim Walton said. "They asked me a lot of times [to] tell them 'an inside secret that you think is going to be successful?' I say 'We're left-handed.' "

It was an advantage 48 hours earlier in the 7-1 beating of Oregon State — just like it was last weekend against Virginia Tech — but the Beavers didn't throw a pitcher in the class of Maxwell, what with her three speeds, as Walton described, as "the hard, the slow, then the slower."

Not many teams could. 

The Gators just couldn't time her up. 

Two nights earlier, in a 4-2 win over Arizona in the Cowgirls' WCWS opener, Maxwell went seven innings, gave up four hits, fanned 13 and walked just two. OSU coach Kenny Gajewski, Walton's long-time friend and former UF assistant coach, told of how Maxwell was called for a random NCAA drug test after Thursday's game (which started around 9 p.m. local time), but the sample was flagged as "diluted," meaning she had to be retested. 

After two-plus hours of sweating, hydrating, sweating, she didn't have a second test in her; at least, not right away. 

"I don't know if you've ever had to drug test, but it's not fun," Gajewski said. "People are staring at you. You're trying to test. You're tired. It's [midnight]."  The OSU team got back to the hotel at 3 a.m. Friday morning, yet there was never a doubt — with a day of recovery for winners under the new WCWS format — that Maxwell would be in the circle for the Cowgirls' second game. 

"I didn't think very much about it, to be honest," Gajewski said. 

He did say, however, that Maxwell got "gassed" late in the game, when UF had chances to score in the last two innings, only to be snuffed out by the OSU ace.

If her performance Saturday constitutes "gassed," Oklahoma State could very well be playing rival Oklahoma in the WCWS championship series. With Sunday off, Maxwell figures to be in the circle again with a chance to reach the finals, but there are no givens, of course.

Same for the Gators, obviously, who are now in a win-or-go-home scenario. They were in one (twice) last weekend in Blacksburg and bounced back magnificently, especially at the plate. On Saturday against Maxwell, though, they went a combined 3-for-24, with the hitters in the 1 through 5 holes — Kendra Falby (who came in batting .500 in the tournament) , Adams (.364), Skylar Wallace (.545), Charla Echols (.375) and Reagan Walsh (.381) — a collective 1-for-12 (with four strikeous), including 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position. 

Anything remotely similar to that against the Bruins will lead to a Monday flight back to Gainesville. 

"We don't really let the last game affect us," Adams said. "We're just going to do what we need to do to prepare for our next game."

That'll mean hitting and scoring. They were doing it before. Not that long, either.