WCWS FINAL: Florida 9, Oklahoma 3 – Florida Gators

WHAT HAPPENED: Florida unloaded on powerhouse Oklahoma for four homers, with two by senior Skylar Wallace and an inside-the-park job by junior Kendra Falby, as the fourth-seeded Gators turned the offensive tables on the No. 2-seed and three-time reigning NCAA champion Sooners for a 9-3 victory in Monday’s semifinal round of the Women’s College World Series at Oklahoma City. Falby’s tone-setting circle of the bases came in the second inning and was immediately followed by Wallace’s first homer, a moonshot to right. Junior Reagan Walsh added a three-run blast in the fourth, for her team-best 18th of the season, and Wallace a two-run jack in the fifth, as UF piled on and handed OU its most lopsided defeat of the season.

In winning a second elimination game in as many days, the Gators are one victory away over OU to advancing to the WCWS best-of-three championship series. They did it by banging out 10 hits, half of them for extra bases, and by doing plenty of damage early. They also got a gutsy performance from freshman Keagan Rothrock (33-8) in the circle. Rothrock, the UF starter in all 13 postseason games, won for the ninth time in NCAA play, and mostly shut down an OU offense — which came in averaging 8.4 runs and 9.8 hits per game — by holding the Sooners to the three runs and seven hits while working around seven walks and a couple wild pitches. 

OU coach Patty Gasso chose not to go with either of her lefty aces, All American Kelly Maxwell or Kiersten Deal, to start the game and instead opted for senior right-hander Nicole May.  Florida jumped out to a 3-0 lead after just two innings. The Gators scored one in the bottom of the first on singles by Korbe Otis and Walsh. Then came the back-to-back homers in the second. Falby, batting out of the No. 9 position, pulled off the first inside-the-park homer at the WCWS since 2014 and just the third in WCWS history to break her 0-for-20 slump in the Super Regional and WCWS. Wallace stepped in next and bombarded a shot to right for just her second hit in her two WCWS as a Gator. When Florida put runners on the corners with back-to-back singles from Jocelyn Erickson and Walsh to start the third, May was done for the day and replaced by Deal. Though she inherited a no-out mess, Deal came close to escaping it with a pair of infield pop-outs. But UF freshman Ava Brown, who did not play in Sunday’s elimination win over Alabama and was hitless in her previous 10 at-bats, doubled to deep left, driving home Erickson for a 4-0 lead. The Sooners got one back in the fourth on an RBI single from catcher Kinzie Hansen, but the Gators trebled that run with Walsh’s three-run shot in the fourth.

Oklahoma, the No. 2 hitting team in the country at .363 coming in, had its chances. Tiare Jennings cranked her 24th home run of the season, a two-run shot in the fifth, to close the UF lead to 7-3. The Sooners got two more runners on in the inning, but Rothrock got Kasidi Pickering to ground out and escape the jam. This time, it was Wallace cancelling out those two OU runs with her second homer, a two-run shot to the opposite field, for a 9-3 lead in the fifth. Rothrock had to work around a jam of her own doing in the Oklahoma seven after walking the bases loaded with two outs, but got Rylie Boone to fly out to end the game. 

PLAY OF THE GAME: Pick your Falby poison. Her retreating and leaping catch on a wicked line drive off the bat of Boone came with one out in the second and Pickering parked at third. Pickering, like everyone among the partisan OU crowd at Devon Park, assumed the ball was going to the wall and was halfway down the basepath when Falby made her circus catch. Pickering had to retreat to third, denying the Sooners of what should have been an easy SAC fly score. About 10 minutes later, Falby stepped to the plate with one out in the second and did her sprint around the bases, igniting the UF dugout. 

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Wallace came into the game 1-for-13 (with the lone hit an infield single) in her six previous WCWS games as a Gator. This time, she went 2-for-3 with a couple homers and three RBI. Falby, meanwhile, not only came into the game 0-for-20 the last six games, but 5-for-41 (.122) over the postseason, dating to the Southeastern Conference Tournament. Suffice to say, she broke out of her slump in style. How important is it to have those two playmakers on base? The Gators improved to 33-1 when Falby and Wallace score in the same game.

STAGGERING STATISTIC: By just the third inning, the Gators had scored more runs (4) than any Sooners opponent in the previous 11 games. UF’s nine runs equaled the most given up by OU in its 60 games this season, with the six-run margin of defeat the Sooners’ largest of 2024.

NOTABLES:

• Kendra Falby’s inside-the-park home run in the bottom of the second inning was only the third such home run at the Women’s College World Series.

  • June 3, 2006 – Andrea Duran – UCLA – 3^rd Inning – vs. Texas
  • May 31, 2014 – Callie Parsons – Louisiana – 6^th Inning – vs. Oklahoma
  • June 3, 2024 – Kendra Falby – Florida – 2^nd Inning – vs. Oklahoma

• Reagan Walsh’s four RBI in today’s game against Oklahoma is tied for the most at this year’s WCWS with Jocelyn Erickson who posted four in the elimination game win over Alabama yesterday.
• The Gators set a pair of single-season records in today’s game as new marks were set in runs scored (514) and RBI (487), breaking the previous marks of 508 runs (2011) and 479 RBI (2011).
• Florida hit four home runs in today’s game against Oklahoma, which ties the 2024 season high for the program and it’s the first time against a ranked opponent.

  • Feb. 21 – at North Florida
  • March 1 – vs. DePaul
  • June 3 – vs. No. 2 Oklahoma

• It’s also tied for the most home runs hit in a single game at the WCWS as the only other time occurred against Alabama (June 5, 2011).

UP NEXT: Florida (54-14) and Oklahoma (53-7) were supposed to turn it around and play an elimination game Monday night, but the three-hour weather delay earlier in the day pushed the semifinals schedule back. Instead, the Gators and Sooners will meet Tuesday at a time to be determined (probably early), with the winner advancing to the 2024 WCWS championship series, set to start Wednesday night, against either No. 1-seed Texas or 8-seed Stanford, who are matched in the other semifinal.