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Thursday, March 28, 2024

On senior Francesca Enea’s 22nd birthday, her teammates gave her the gift of a 10-1 win over Northwestern State on Sunday.

The win improved Florida’s record to 12-1 on the season and completed a three-game sweep over the Demons.

The Gators outscored Northwestern State 30-1 during the course of the weekend, pounding out eight home runs.

“I don’t get caught up in the home runs, but we swing the bat hard and try to do a good job going with pitches,” UF coach Tim Walton said. “It’s inevitable we’re going to hit some home runs but my big thing is getting people on base.”

UF certainly did a good job getting players on, as the team combined for a .518 on-base percentage in the series.

In addition to notching 26 hits, UF hitters drew 16 walks over the weekend.

Junior Aja Paculba led the way with five, and also hit her first home run of the season in Sunday’s finale.

“She had a good hit today with runners in scoring position and overall she gets on base a lot,” Walton said. “Even when she’s not swinging the bat as well as she’s capable of, I still think she does a good job of not swinging at bad pitches.”

Paculba became the eighth Gator to have a ball leave the yard this season.

The hit could mark a turnaround for Paculba, who is batting just .250 after a 2 for 20 start to the year.

“I needed a confidence booster before we start SECs and go off to California, so it was a good day for me,” Paculba said.

Ace Stephanie Brombacher got all three of the weekend’s wins for Florida, giving up only one run in 12 innings of work.

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It was also a good weekend for freshman pitchers Ensley Gammel and Erin Schuppert, as they combined for five scoreless innings.

“They’ve all been great,” catcher Tiffany DeFelice said. “They’ve been hitting their spots, and they’ve been working through a little bit of adversity, which is good.”

DeFelice had a good finale in her own right, giving the Gators a 4-0 lead with a three-run home run in her first at-bat after going 0 for 4 in Saturday’s games.

“I was just trying to put that way in the back of my head, and I just came out here with a lot better of an attitude and a better strategy today and I think that worked out for me,” DeFelice said.

Other top performers from the series were Enea, Kelsey Bruder and Michelle Moultrie.

Enea was 3 for 6 on the weekend, and extended her team lead in home runs to six and RBIs to 20.

Bruder’s two home runs in the third inning of Game 1 have her right behind Enea with five on the year, and were the highlight of her 5 for 8 series.

Like Bruder, Moultrie was able to reach base on five of her eight plate appearances, hitting for the cycle over the three games.

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