UW softball eliminated by Florida in Women’s College World Series

OKLAHOMA CITY — In 2014, against the Alabama Crimson Tide in Game 2 of the Championship Series of the Women’s College World Series, Florida coach Tim Walton threw a freshman pitcher into the fray.

Delanie Gourley pitched two hitless innings and struck out two Alabama batters. She didn’t close the game, but she helped the Gators win and claim their first national title in school history. After the game, Walton was approached by Florida’s athletic director at the time, Jeremy Foley. “That was a gutsy move,” Foley said.

“This isn’t the last time we’re going to come back here,” Walton said. “I’ve got to get that kid in there so she can have an opportunity to feel what it’s like to be in this moment.”

It paid off.

Gourley, now a senior, made her first career start against the Washington Huskies Sunday with a chance to do just what her coach saw, get back to the World Series final. In a 5-2 win for Florida, she didn’t disappoint. Gourley, with the help of a rolling Gator offense, orchestrated a complete game, 10-strikeout performance that Walton called “as good as I’ve ever seen.”

Washington coach Heather Tarr was just as complimentary, saying Gourley threw one of the best change-ups she’s seen. Gourley’s excellence makes it hard to believe it was only her first start, but Florida opened the tournament with back-to-back starts by Kelly Barnhill.

“Hat’s off to Florida for having two and three arms. I don’t know, for the Washington Huskies, if it was hard for us to prepare. I think we were ready,” Tarr said. “I think Gourley pitched a great game. I don’t think it was us. She didn’t miss. Maybe one time she missed and we took advantage of it.”

Gourley’s only blemish, the one time she missed, was a homer from Washington’s Julia DePonte in the final inning of a game that had all but been decided. DePonte’s shot, and the two runs that came from it, prevented what would have been a third consecutive shutout for the Gators.

“What happened in that last inning, when we scored those couple runs, is this team,” Tarr said. “It’s what this team does. Fights, believes, trusts each other, trusts the plan and I couldn’t be more proud of a group. Never coached a better group.”

That home run, DePonte’s first of the WCWS, was about something bigger than her, she said.

“I did it for these two right here,” she said as she looked over at two emotional seniors, Ali Aguilar and Casey Stangel. “They showed us the way, they got us here. We wouldn’t be here without them. They changed this culture. That home run, that hit, it’s all about us, it’s all about together.”

With its season over, Washington will look to the future. In doing so, it will need to find a way to replace Aguilar and Stangel, two women that have become leaders of the Husky program. DePonte said the two became unquestioned leaders when the team took a charter bus home after ending its 2016 campaign in Alabama.

“What they did for the program this year and the environment that they created and the standards that they helped us continue to set are things that will live forever,” Tarr said.

One of the most noticeable by-products of Stangel’s and Aguilar’s ascent was the team saying: “leave no doubt.” The phrase became a rallying cry, a unifying force.

“We’d never been to the World Series, and from the beginning of this year we put on our shirts that we wanted to leave no doubt in people’s mind that we were going to get here and we were going to make a statement,” Aguilar said.

Tarr acknowledged that there will be questions about whether starting sophomore Taran Alvelo for a fourth consecutive day was the right move, but hindsight isn’t always the best lens. “We were going with what got us here,” she said.

Alvelo lasted just one inning before being replaced with Madi Schreyer. Alvelo gave up four earned runs compared to just one for Schreyer, but rather than question her ace, Tarr praised her growth. Rather than lament over what might have been if the Huskies offense got going (just seven runs in four games), she thanked her seniors for getting the team back to Oklahoma City and talked about the bright future ahead.