GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Oklahoma’s Cydney Sanders barreled up the pitch from Keagan Rothrock to start the second inning Saturday, sending the ball rocketing to dead center field. 

“I was like, ‘Oooooooooo-kay,’ ” Rothrock would say later, knowing full well her pitch had been tattooed. 

But when she wheeled around and saw Florida outfielder-extraordinaire Kendra Falby tracking the ball, Rothrock knew another extra base hit was about to die in Falby’s glove. For the second night in a row, Falby made a circus catch on a dead-run into the warning track, this time scaling the wall and plucking the ball from the other side. A total robbery.

Moments later, the sold-out Florida home crowd was chanting the name of the senior standout and reigning NCAA Gold Glove at her position with serenades of “KEN-DRA FAL-BY!” as she ran into the dugout at the end of the inning. 

Falby, who would go on to post a game-high six putouts (as many as either catcher or first baseman), turned to Coach Tim Walton — who in the post-game called Falby “the best defensive player in the country” at any position — and asked how she should respond to the chorus. 

“It’s OK to wave,” he said. 

 

.@kendrafalby is a human highlight reel 🤯#NCAASoftball x 🎥 ESPN2 / @GatorsSB pic.twitter.com/bwv4RZEISy

— NCAA Softball (@NCAASoftball) May 3, 2025

It was a curtain-call kind of night for the home team at Pressly Stadium, to be sure, as the ninth-ranked Gators finished off 6-4 victory over the No. 1 and four-time reigning national-champion Sooners, defeating college softball’s juggernaut for a second time in as many days to claim their best-of-three Southeastern Conference series. Afterward, Walton praised the way his players put a mostly complete game together — timely hitting, good-enough pitching, outstanding defense — in the regular-season finale, thus sending the team into the postseason with a bit of a bounce after a middling 8-7 mark in the month of April, including 5-7 in league play. 

“We flipped the page from April,” Falby said. “It’s May now and it’s go-time. I’m just so excited to see what this team does.” 

The night before, the Gators (43-13, 14-10) blasted four homers in a 9-4 win, their first over a No. 1-ranked team since 2013, and 24 hours later handed the Sooners (43-7, 17-7), league champs in their first SEC season, a second consecutive loss and a seventh conference defeat. Get this: OU had lost just seven conference games combined during its four-year run of national titles while playing out of the Big 12. 

The Sooners, who went 26-0 against non-conference opponents, actually lost three series in their inaugural SEC campaign (against Tennessee and Alabama, too), which speaks to the strength of the league. 

In OU’s lone victory against the Gators, it needed nine innings to claim a 6-5 win Thursday (UF had its chances in that one, but could not come up with the big late hit) and got a terrific complete-game pitching performance from ace Sam Landry. 

Landry was back in the circle Saturday, but Florida knocked her out of the game in a three-run sixth when the Gators took a 6-2 lead behind a solo homer by Ava Brown — who hit her second in as many nights, plus relieved Rothrock to close the game’s final three innings — and added a couple small-ball runs, one of them a dash home by the speedy Falby on a wild pitch. 

Brown got into some trouble in the seventh, giving up a homer and a couple walks, but stared down the Sooners in the end, like she did in throwing the final two innings to close Game 2 of the series. 

“She’s got guts,” Walton said of Brown. “I’d like to take some of her guts and give them to some other people.” 

It may be happening organically. Understand something: Any team that can beat Oklahoma twice in May is a team that can be dangerous in June. 

As in at the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City. 

First things first, however. The SEC Tournament starts Wednesday in Athens, Georgia. After that, the NCAA Tournament field will be announced, with the Gators in excellent shape to be a top-eight seed and thus in line to be at home through the Super Region round. 

The energy of the UF crowd over the three days was amazing, some of the best in Walton’s 20 seasons, he said. The Gators giving them plenty to cheer about.  

“I’m just proud of our team for finally coming out and finally showing a little more; more of what we’re capable of against good teams,” said Walton, who has now defeated the Sooners in three of the previous five meetings, dating to a win in the WCWS semifinals last June. “We can beat anybody. We hadn’t beaten a No. 1 [team] and a No. 1 [pitcher] and we did [Saturday]. I think that tells our team exactly what I’ve been telling them: We’re really good. When we get this team going right, we’re really good … and I wouldn’t want to play them.”

Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu