WOMEN’S COLLEGE WORLD SERIES / FIRST ROUND

OKLAHOMA CITY  – Texas first baseman Joley Mitchell smacked a pair of solo home runs and Teagan Kavan threw a complete-game, two-hit shutout Thursday as the sixth-seeded Longhorns defeated third-seeded Florida 3-0 in the opening game at the Women’s College World Series at Devon Park. 

The outcome dumped the Gators into the tournament loser’s bracket, where they’ll play for their WCWS lives Friday in an elimination game. It marked the first time UF lost its first game in Oklahoma City since 2019, which was also the last time the Gators were swept from the event.

Mitchell opened the scoring when she dug into a Keagan Rothrock (16-7) pitch low in the strike zone and poked it over the left-field wall for a solo homer to start the second inning. Mitchell clubbed her second to open the Texas fifth, sending that one over the right-field wall and just over the out-stretched glove of leaping UF center fielder Kendra Falby. The next hitter, Katie Stewart, greeted Rothrock with a second straight homer that landed deep into the right-field bleachers. 

The Gators, meanwhile, struggled offensively; even in making solid contact. Kavan (25-5) faced just 24 batters, three over the minimum, with UF’s out distribution showing 13 by grounders (including one double play), two infield pop-ups, one strikeout and five fly-outs (two of warning-track depth). Florida’s two hits were a Korbe Otis two-out ground single and Taylor Shumaker’s swinging bunt that checked up in front of the plate two out in the sixth. The Gators left just three runners on base. 

Texas, which beat Florida three of four in head-to-head matchups this season and shut out the Gators 10-0 here in second-round play in 2024, finished with seven hits, five against Rothrock, who was relieved after the back-to-back sixth-inning homers. Ava Brown gave up two hits, then gave way to Olivia Miller and Katelynn Oxley to finish the last two innings. Miller and Oxley faced three batters each and set them down in order.

PLAY OF THE GAME: Even with Mitchell’s first two homers, a 2-0 lead still seemed manageable, but Stewart’s shot immediately after — though just one more run — gave the game a different feel from the UF side. 
 
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: In three games against the Gators this season, Kavan is 3-0 in pitching 15.2 innings, allowing 12 hits and just one earned run for a sparkling ERA of 0.46. 

STAGGERING STATISTIC: UF fell to 1-17 all-time when trailing after the fourth inning at the WCWS. The lone victory came in 2013 when the Gators erased a 2-0 deficit against Nebraska in the fifth and eventually defeated the Cornhuskers 9-8 in 15 innings.   

UP NEXT: Florida (48-16) will face either four-time defending champion and second-seeded Oklahoma or seventh-seeded Tennessee, who played the second game of Thursday’s opening round, in a Friday night elimination game starting at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN2. UF took two of three in a home series against OU during the regular season, but did not face the Volunteers. 

QUOTES

Coach Tim Walton 

* (Opening statement): Good game, obviously. Softball. We were on the losing side. But thought both teams played well. We weren’t able to string anything together consistently, but overall thought we played well. Ready to play. And they just did a little bit better job than we did.”

* (On Rothrock and the team bouncing back Friday): “Yeah, the cool thing for me is you guys get a small sample size of these guys, but just listen to their answers and listen to the way they answer questions in a tough moment. Obviously, it’s a huge letdown to lose the first game of the College World Series, and the way they go about their business just tells me everything I need to know about the people that I coach. They take it serious. They compete. They work hard, and they enjoy what they do. So to me, no matter what we do tomorrow, today was a learning opportunity.”

Keagan Rothrock  

* (On the loss): “Nobody wants to be a loser on the elimination bracket side of it. But I also think we’re a team that when our back is against the wall, for whatever reason, we play a little bit more free, which seems really backwards, but at the same time I think the experience last year does help us. But with the new people, just learning how to continue to play Gator softball and just to continue to focus on us and make sure that we’re doing the things that we need to be able to do.”

* (On Mitchell’s two homers): “She just hit a softball, honestly. Anybody is going to hit a ball on any day. I don’t really have a better answer for that other than she just hit pitches.”

Korbe Otis  

* (On Kavan’s performance): “I mean, she’s a good pitcher. Everybody that we’re going to face at the College World Series is going to be a good pitcher. She just made a few better pitches than we were able to hit, so she did a good job.

* (On what can be done to fix the offense in a day): “There’s nothing that’s broken. There’s nothing broken to fix. Our offense is really powerful. Today obviously we just didn’t get the right … we obviously just didn’t put the right swings on the right pitches, and sometimes that’s how softball goes. So there’s not a huge adjustment to make. We’re just going out and playing Gator softball and staying us.”

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