Softball Begins Dancing, Baseball Clinches SEC East Pennant

Your No. 1 Florida Gators (55-3) open play in the NCAA Tournament this afternoon, facing FAMU (30-30) in regional play. The winner of that game faces the winner of Texas A&M (31-19) and Lehigh (36-16-1). Texas A&M is the team who defeated UF 1-0 in extra innings in the 2008 National Semifinals. The Aggies also ended UF's tournament run in 2007, defeating the Gators in the Super Regionals in College Station. Each round of the tournament is double elimination. As the overall No. 1 seed, The Best Dressed Women in Gainesville would have home field advantage in the Super Regionals as well.

Gator Baseball defeated Kentucky 10-3 last night, clinching the SEC East pennant. This is huge for UF. Not just because there were a lot of questions about how strong their staff would be and if freshmen could step up. But Florida does not have the MLB studs some of the SEC West teams have. (Pitcher Stephen Locke, who got the win last night, might be the most MLB ready guy. Preston Tucker and Matt den Dekker look good too.)

Florida (37-17) has a chance to win the outright SEC title (they are one back of LSU with games today and Saturday), but is more likely playing for a regional host spot. If the Gators can win the SEC Tournament next week in Hoover, that will easily clinch a Super Regional host spot, and a top-8 ranking. The last time the Gators reached Omaha was 2005, when they had home field in both rounds. These Gators are 26-7 at home, 10-9 on the road.