GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The remark was delivered in a very plain, no-nonsense manner. 

“The past week has been really hard,” Florida coach Tim Walton said Thursday. 

It had been eight days since his team’s last outing, a 6-3 loss to Ole Miss on the first day of the Southeastern Conference Tournament. The setback had to sting a little extra, given the Gators were coming off consecutive wins and a feel-good home series victory over No. 1 Oklahoma to end the regular season. 

The Rebels, the SEC tournament’s No. 11 seed, jumped ahead 3-0 in the top of the third. The Gators got one back in their half, then came up clutch in the bottom of the seventh with back-to-back solo homers from Jocelyn Erickson and freshman Taylor Shumaker to tie the game and send it into extras. 

Ole Miss answered immediately, though, with a three-run homer in the eighth to send UF home with its earliest conference tournament exit in eight years.  

So, it was back to work, the Walton way. 

“I pushed them really hard, intentionally,” he said. “Get the sour taste of our last game, the loss, out of our mouth and put some pressure on them and get them ready to just take on all-comers. More importantly, to take themselves on. That’s been the missing pieces from a few of our games, a few of our innings; the confidence level, the trust level, the togetherness sometimes gets lost — in a bad way, but not [because of] bad people. Just not competing the way champions compete. That’s been the push.”

Now it’s time to compete for another championship. The big one. To get to the Women’s College World Series again — Florida has reached Oklahoma City 12 times in Walton’s previous 19 seasons — the fifth-ranked Gators (43-14) will have to defend Pressly Stadium during this weekend’s NCAA regional, starting Friday afternoon with first-round play against Mercer (38-24), then do it again against whoever they’d face in Super Region play next week. There are, of course, no givens. 

Hence the “push” because a simple nudge wasn’t going to suffice. Not in May. 

And given Walton’s air of seriousness in talking about it, imagine the locked-in nature of his players in dealing with it.  

“I think it was a good turning point in our season,” Erickson, the junior catcher and one of the team’s leaders, said of the latest loss. “We don’t want to feel that again. So I think we’re focused in on us and ready for regionals.”

Neither of the three other teams in the Gainesville bracket — No. 2-seed Florida Atlantic, 3-seed Georgia Tech or 4-seed Mercer, out of the Southern Conference — pack the punch of a SEC opponent, but UF also doesn’t want to do the Bears (or Owls or Yellow Jackets) any favors with lapses on defense, misplaced pitches or poor at-bats. 

Regarding the latter, the Gators left a whopping 15 runners on base against the Rebels, including three to end the game. 

After that one, the wise-beyond-her-years Shumaker, SEC Freshman of the Year, seemed to anticipate the reset that was coming. 

“After moments like this, it just is one more reason to go back home and figure out who we are and what we need to do and then go right back to it and grind it out and figure out who we are as a group again, because you never stop finding out who you are,” Shumaker said. “People think that once you get to the postseason it’s like, ‘We are who we are,’ and I really don’t think that’s the case. I think teams continue to build after each and every game.” 

Each and every practice, too. Especially the really challenging ones. 

Despite their last outing, and given the “push” and high-stakes circumstances ahead, Walton didn’t sense any change in demeanor with his players, but rather one of “intensity,” he said. 

“I think they’re tired of me, tired of looking at me, and I’m tired of them looking at me,” Walton said. “I want them to have the answers. I want them to have the response and be ready to come out and get after somebody. Not for one inning, but for five, six and seven innings. That’s the message.”

That’s the push. Knowing the program under Walton, especially this time of year, his players will treat it like a shove.  

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