The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Florida
No. 8/8 Texas Softball drops 5-1 decision to No. 1/3 Florida
02.24.2012 | Softball
Feb. 24, 2012
Box Score 
CATHEDRAL CITY, Calif. - Hannah Rogers allowed one run on four hits with eight strikeouts as the No. 1/3 Florida Gators handed the No. 8/8 Texas Longhorns their first loss of the season with the 5-1 decision on Friday. Sami Fagan went 2-for-4 while Cheyenne Coyle and Kelsey Gammel each homered for the Gators. Rogers held the Longhorns to a season-low four hits.
Florida (12-1) produced a run in the first inning off Texas starter Kim Bruins (2-1) when Lauren Haeger lifted a sacrifice fly to right to score Fagan. The Longhorns (10-1) scored what turned out to be their lone run of the game in the second. Taylor Thom and Nadia Taylor had back-to-back singles. Thom would steal third and score the tying run when Torie Schmidt hit a ground ball to third.
Coyle and Gammel chased Bruins in the fourth with solo shots as Rachel Fox closed out the game in relief for the Longhorns. The Gators pushed across two more runs in the fifth as Rogers silenced the Texas offense for the remainder of the game.
Texas continues play in the Cathedral City Classic tomorrow against No. 7/5 UCLA in a 5 p.m. Central time start.
Post-Game Quotes
Head Coach Connie Clark
On Kim Bruins' performance against Florida: Actually early with Kim (Bruins), she had some nerves and that didn't surprise me. We took the timeout and said don't think about the uniform. She settled in and did a nice job for us. Florida is a great hitting ball club and I was hoping to get her out of that inning before that second home run because we were going to make a switch any way. Kim didn't have great command of her changeup today and we really needed that. She kept trying to find it and that's one of the reasons we were trying to go to Rachel (Fox). I thought the game was still within reach with us down, 3-1. We have to field the bunt better and that's something we need to commit to being better at this season.
On playing UCLA tomorrow: We haven't seen UCLA for a while. We anticipate that Blaire (Luna) will get the start tomorrow. You don't have any matchups in Palm Springs that aren't just great competitions. We are going to talk tomorrow about our behaviors and our scorecards to see if we can build on anything from this game and be better. We just have to keep competing.
On focusing on the players improving with each game: It's too early for me to say post-game what I would score our players on the scorecard. More importantly, I want to get them in the room and hear their thoughts. We have suggested what the behaviors should be for competitive spirit, we have come up with that as a group. I want to hear what they have to see in terms of what they would rate themselves in terms of our scorecard. We will get better in the areas that we need to and apply those right away. That's where we need to be early in the season.
