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Friday, March 29, 2024
<p>Aleshia Ocasio pitches during Florida's 4-1 win against Illinois State on Feb. 21 at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium.</p>

Aleshia Ocasio pitches during Florida's 4-1 win against Illinois State on Feb. 21 at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium.

Caroline Seitz and the Mississippi State offense had nothing going on for six innings.

And then the seventh inning came around.

Entering the bottom of the frame, the Bulldogs trailed 3-0.

But after getting two runs back and making it a one run game, Seitz came up to the plate with two runners on.

And on an 0-1 count, Seitz took a pitch from Florida starting pitcher Aleshia Ocasio and sent it over the left field wall to complete the comeback as Mississippi State (25-10, 5-7 Southeastern Conference) beat No. 3 Florida (32-4, 5-4 SEC) 5-3 in Starkville, Mississippi.

"Give Mississippi State credit," UF coach Tim Walton said in a release. "We had two outs and two strikes against four or five different batters (in the seventh inning), and we just couldn’t quite put it away."

Ocasio cruised through six innings and was getting stronger as the game was going into the late innings.

She struck out three Bulldogs in the fourth inning and followed that up by striking out the side in the fifth.

But it all came apart for the St. Cloud native in the seventh as she allowed all five runs to Mississippi State with two outs. Ocasio is now 11-3 on the season.

One day after scoring 16 runs in an offensive explosion, Florida’s offense came back down to earth in the series finale against Mississippi State.

Florida scored two runs in the first inning to bring the team’s three game total to 14 runs scored in the opening frame.

Kelsey Stewart and Kirsti Merritt executed a double steal to perfection as Merritt stole second while Stewart took home to give UF a 1-0 lead.

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Merritt would come around to score when Mississippi State pitcher Alexis Silkwood had an illegal pitch to make it 2-0.

But after that UF missed on three big opportunities with the bases loaded and two outs in the game.

In total, the Gators left 11 runners on base, with nine of them being stranded with the bases loaded.

For Mississippi State, Silkwood threw 158 pitches on the day. In the first game of the series on Friday, Silkwood threw a staggering 172 pitches. But in both of her starts in the series, Silkwood was able to make pitches when she had to and allowed only six runs in her two appearances in the series.

Silkwood was able to bear down and throw her best pitches in the series with her back against the wall three times with the bases loaded and was able to get out of each jam.

Florida won’t have a lot of time to think about the loss as they have a midweek matchup against in-state opponent North Florida on Wednesday.

"We’re going to focus a lot on our offense and try to get it going in the next couple weeks," Walton said. "... We’re going to really increase our reps – that’s one thing we haven’t been able to do here because of travel."

 Follow Luis Torres on Twitter @LFTorresIII

Aleshia Ocasio pitches during Florida's 4-1 win against Illinois State on Feb. 21 at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium.

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