In the home half of the third inning on Sunday night, UF third baseman Nicole DeWitt stood on second base with an ear-to-ear grin.
Moments earlier with the bases loaded, the senior nearly hit her eighth home run of the season. Somehow the ball landed on top of the wall, ricocheted back into play and plopped softly onto the warning track.
DeWitt couldn’t help but giggle.
Her three-RBI double put the game out of reach from rival Texas A&M and bolstered UF’s lead to nine runs.
“We’re going to have to shave the top of our wall down some,” UF coach Tim Walton said. “(Earlier) this year, she hit the same one to right-center. It hit the exact top spot. I’ve never seen it (before), ever.”
DeWitt paced Florida’s offense with a game-high five RBIs, while the team’s defense — led by pitcher Aleshia Ocasio — blanked the Aggies in a 10-0 victory at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium.
The shutout clinched a series victory for the Gators (26-3, 6-2 SEC) over Texas A&M (29-6, 3-2 SEC) on Sunday with one game left to be played.
And for the second night in a row, the Gators jumped out to a first-inning lead.
A leadoff walk by left fielder Amanda Lorenz brought DeWitt to the plate.
After laying off a first-pitch ball, she powered her team-leading seventh home run to dead center field and put two quick runs on the board.
Later in the inning, second baseman Hannah Adams approached the plate with two outs and two runners on base. The freshman drove a hard line drive to right-center field that barely carried over the wall for her first collegiate home run, extending the Gators’ early lead to 5-0.
DeWitt and Adams combined for eight RBIs on the night and helped the Gators improve to 20-1 on the season when scoring in the first inning.
“To get hits and to get home runs in this league says a lot,” Walton said. “We’ve faced a lot of pitchers so far in two days, and I thought we did a really good job of adjusting to each one.”
Ocasio (11-2), who totaled six strikeouts, one hit and no walks in five innings of work, began the night by striking out two of her first three batters. Her only trouble came when Texas A&M’s Samantha Show tripled to right center field with one out in the third.
However, the senior struck out the next two batters, retiring the last eight she faced to close out the game.
Sunday not only marked a victory for the UF softball team, but was the four-year anniversary of the death of Heather Braswell, a teenager whom the Gators once sponsored during her fight with pediatric brain cancer.
The players shared a moment of prayer with Heather’s mother, Terri, before the first pitch and wore Heather’s favorite flower, the sunflower, in their hair to honor her memory.
“My class and the classes below us, none of us have ever met Heather. We never had that honor,” DeWitt said. “But we know how much a part she plays for this program, and it’s just something that we’ll keep going for the program for the rest of the time that it’s here.”
Follow Mark Stine on Twitter @mstinejr and contact him at mstine@alligator.org.
Senior Aleshia Ocasio struck out 10 Missouri batters in a complete game shutout of the Tigers at the Mizzou Softball Stadium.
