clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Florida vs. Tennessee, 2015 WCWS open thread: To repeat, Gators must first get revenge

Florida will likely see two teams that have given the Gators half their losses this year in the next few days.

By Andy Hutchins
GatorZone

Florida has already faced more than half of the teams in the field at the 2015 Women's College World Series this season.

And the Gators have chomped their competition, for the most part.

There were the two games with Oregon in California, in San Diego and Fullerton, that ended 3-0 and 5-1 in the Gators favor. Florida's beaten Michigan in Tampa and in Fullerton. The Gators took two of three from Alabama in Tuscaloosa, among the rarer feats a team can perform.

But those three teams are the other side of the bracket. The one the Gators are on? It has the two WCWS teams that Florida has a losing record against this year.

The first of those two teams is Tennessee, which dispatched Florida from the SEC Tournament with a painful 2-1 win on May 8. That game produced Lauren Haeger's first loss of the year, and Florida had just three hits in the contest ... but Florida actually had more baserunners than the Vols did, thanks to four batters being hit by pitches.

The second is LSU, which rebounded from losing the first game of a series in Gainesville to knock off Florida at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium twice, becoming the first team to a) defeat and b) take a series from the Gators in 2015 on consecutive days. The Tigers did their damage with power, lighting up Florida pitchers for 28 runs over the three-game set — and no Gators hurler was spared, with even Haeger conceding seven earned runs in 6.2 innings of work.

Florida won't have to deal with LSU until Friday; its meeting with Tennessee at noon on ESPN is more pressing. And the Gators could use more offense than they have gotten of late, too: Blanking teams like Florida A&M and Kentucky en route to Oklahoma City was impressive, to be sure, but the Gators have only scored 22 runs over five games in NCAA Tournament play.

That rate of runs might not keep Florida's postseason run going. So it would be a good idea for the Gators to get up and go.

They are angling for a repeat. First, though, they'll need to get revenge.