A look back at 2019
Florida finished the 2019 season with a 49-18 overall record, with a 12-12 showing in SEC play. The Gators started the season on an 18-game winning streak, including wins over Michigan and Arizona on opening weekend and early March victories over Oregon and Washington, but fell twice to UCLA. The Gators bested Minnesota in a mid-season single game, and split a home-and-home set with archrivals Florida State.
The Gators started the conference season in rather unceremonious fashion, losing their first three series’ of SEC play against Tennessee, LSU, and Ole Miss, respectively, salvaging an individual game from each weekend set. The squad swept Arkansas and Texas A&M and won the series over Auburn, but suffered a three-game sweep at the hands of Alabama and ended the regular season by recording a pair of losses to Mississippi State in the final conference series.
After a perfect 4-0 run through the SEC tournament en route to the conference title, the Gators were selected as the #5-overall seed in the NCAA tournament. Three shutouts in the Regional round led to a Super Regional matchup against conference foe Tennessee, where the Gators won the best-of-three series to advance to the WCWS. The squad went 0-2 in Oklahoma City, losing first to Oklahoma State and then to Alabama in a blowout loss that marked the end of the Gators’ season.
Roster turnover
Departures: Program legends Kelly Barnhill and Amanda Lorenz each graduated following last season, leaving large holes in the team’s pitching staff and offense, respectively. Starting outfielder Alex Voss also graduated following the year.
Additions: The Gators added a pair of transfers, including Charla Echols from Michigan State and Kinsey Goelz from Mississippi State, as well as six freshmen, a number that includes first-year players Julia Cottrill and Rylee Trlicek.
Strengths and weaknesses
Strengths – The Gators are one of the nation’s most experienced and well-prepared teams, a quality that has served them well over the years. The program has experience – even in recent years including 2019 – of pulling success out of the hat despite an average outlook in the preseason, and will fight a similar battle this year. Kendyl Lindaman anchors the batting order, and the Gators have some solid bats to place around her in the order.
Weaknesses – 2019 marked Kelly Barnhill’s final season as a Gator, and the squad wasn’t particularly great even with that ace in the circle. Barnhill is now gone, and questions abound even more about the shape of the team’s pitching staff this season. The staff figures to be helmed by a combination of young and seldom-used players, with Natalie Lugo or the freshman Trlicek as the most likely options to be the ace. The offense also still has Lindaman and some quality, if not stellar, bats around her, but are by no means a unit without some serious questions around them.
2020 outlook
Pitching – Katie Chronister is now the senior member of the Gator staff, but has never pitched more than twenty innings in a season. Junior Natalie Lugo enters the year as the most ace-like candidate, a year after doubling her innings count and averaging just over a strikeout per inning in 2019. Sophomores Elizabeth Hightower and Danni Farley, as well as freshman Trlicek, round out the staff, a rather young and inexperienced unit.
Offense – Making up for the .400-hitting, double-digit home-run bat of Lorenz will be no easy task, though the return of Lindaman certainly softens the blow. The former Minnesota transfer now sits in her second full year in the SEC, and is the team’s top returning hitter and home run slugger. Behind her, infielder Hannah Adams and catcher/designated player hybrid Jordan Roberts are the team’s top returning offensive threats; expect Sophia Reynoso and Echols to step up when called upon.
Coaching – Tim Walton is one of the game’s best coaches, and it’s largely to his credit that the Gators are so adept at pulling something out of the hat when they theoretically should be in a “down” or rebuilding year. After a so-so 2019 campaign, Walton’s team came through in the postseason, with a stellar run through the SEC tournament largely helping the NCAA tournament committee justify their selection of the Gators as the 5th-overall seed in the tournament. Walton’s coaching staff remains consistent year-to-year this season, with Aric Thomas and former Syracuse head coach Mike Bosch as full-time assistants and California great Jolene Henderson as the squad’s volunteer assistant.
Wrap-up
It’s easy to predict the Gators to have a down year after the graduation of Barnhill and Lorenz, with no obvious replacements ready to step into the shoes of the pair of program greats. With that said, however, Florida might be the team most adept at making something out of nothing, especially when the postseason comes around. There are plenty of questions about the program’s pitching staff, and a solid handful about the offense, to boot, but don’t count the Gators out so long as they have nine players to take the field. They’ll always be in contention.
