No. 3 Florida (6-1) earned a pair of entertaining wins Friday night on the opening day of the Lipton invitational.
While the Gators had to rely on the big fly for run production in the first win and got the majority of their runs in the second game playing small ball, junior Megan Bush leaving the yard was a constant throughout.
“The way I coach is we’re just gonna go with what’s working,” UF coach Tim Walton said.
Florida got the night started with a 7-0 win over Campbell (1-4-1).
The Gators belted a team record six home runs in the game, all of them solo shots.
Bush led the way with two, while sophomore Michelle Moultrie, freshman Kelsey Horton and juniors Tiffany DeFelice and Kelsey Bruder each hit one of their own.
Horton’s home run was the first hit of her young career, and joined her with fellow freshman Brittany Schutte as players who recently made their first career hit a long ball.
Ace Stephanie Brombacher got the win for the Gators, throwing five scoreless innings and striking out 11 in the process.
In its second game against Kansas, UF veered away from its powerful style in a 12-4 win.
The Gators scored two runs off errors, two off sacrifice flies, two off standard put outs, and five off singles.
The lone other run came courtesy of Bush, whose fourth inning home run was her third of both the afternoon and the season.
“It was fun because I had a slow start so its good to come out of a slow start with something big that can help the team,” Bush said.
Both Bush and junior Aja Paculba were able to break out of big slumps.
Bush was hitting just .077 on the season before her monster day, while Paculba was just 2 for 20 on the year prior to going 4 for 4 against the Jayhawks.
“It was awesome to see us both come through tonight and she came through in a big way,” Bush said.
