Florida softball continues its fall exhibitions as it hosts state rival Florida State on Sunday in a clash of predicted top-10 teams entering 2026.<\/p>\n
The Gators have played lights out this fall, remaining undefeated<\/a> while averaging\u00a0 14 runs per game.<\/p>\n With Kendra Falby graduating after last year, the Gators will look to lean on sophomore Taylor Shumaker, who had the second-best batting average on the squad with a .389 mark. Shumaker has played well so far this fall, including a grand slam in Florida\u2019s first match<\/a> against Florida VIBE.<\/p>\n UF returns a deep pitching staff, led by Katelynn Oxley, who posted a 2.58 ERA during the 2025 season. Keagan Rothrock will also be a key contributor after posting a 16-7 record in 2025 with nine complete games.<\/p>\n The Gators and Seminoles met once last season, with Florida State winning 4-0<\/a>. In that contest, Florida struggled to convert a multitude of offensive opportunities, leaving eight runners on base.\u00a0<\/p>\n Florida State returns a strong lineup in 2026, led by Isa Torres, who sported a .436 batting average in 2025. Another player to watch is Kennedy Harp, a dangerous hitter with a .412 batting average and 10 triples last season.<\/p>\n Florida State also boasts a strong pitching tandem in Ashtyn Danley and Jazzy Francik. Danley led the team last year with a 14-2 record and a 1.60 ERA, while Francik finished the season 10-3 behind a team-leading 1.51 ERA.<\/p>\n First pitch is at 2 p.m. on Sunday<\/a>.<\/p>\n Category: Gator Sports<\/a>, Gators Softball<\/a>, Softball<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida softball continues its fall exhibitions as it hosts state rival Florida State on Sunday in a clash…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,2530,30,29,1320,16577,14888,16578,3112,14890,11727],"class_list":{"0":"post-20808","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-gators","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-news","12":"tag-florida-state","13":"tag-florida-state-softball","14":"tag-gators-softball","15":"tag-jocelyn-erickson","16":"tag-not-latest","17":"tag-taylor-shumaker","18":"tag-tim-walton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}