Tim Walton explains how Florida maintained calm mindset late in Game 1 win

Florida is in the winners’ bracket in the Women’s College World Series, having beat Oklahoma State 1-0 to advance to a Saturday evening matchup with Texas.

The Gators’ offensive output may not have been what they hoped, but the pitching and fielding more than made up for it, keeping a clean sheet to allow just one run from the offense to power Florida to victory. After the game, head coach Tim Walton admitted he saw a much better team on Thursday than he did in the super regional round.

“Yeah, I mean, now that we won a game in the College World Series, we were terrible last week,” said Walton. “We were nervous, played bad. We got better as the week went on. We were bad. Just really nervous, doing a lot of things. I don’t know if it’s the home pressure of a super regional.”

Well, if that’s what it was, the pressure certainly died down and Florida was comfortable and focused on defense all night long. Walton definitely noticed a difference.

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“This week we’ve been amazing. It’s a totally different team. I know it didn’t show up on the offensive statistics today. We’ve been practicing every day since we’ve been here. It’s been a lot better.”

He went on to note that the players were more locked in this week, and focused when the head coach had something to share.

“I think that you can see subtle adjustments. Kids look me in the eye, they shake their head. I tell them ‘I want you to use a 34-inch bat steady of 33.’ It’s ‘Okay, whatever you say.’ For the most part, everybody in that dugout looks at me and trusts what we’re doing.”

Walton continued, saying that Florida hasn’t incorporated any wild tactics, but they’ve just come and taken care of work at practice to prepare for some matchups against elite opponents.

“Then I think on the flip side of that, we’re not doing crazy stuff. We practice a lot of stuff. When you face good pitchers that have All-American in front of their name, you’re going to have to sometimes do some things that are maybe a little bit uncomfortable.”

Rather than a nervousness this week, Tim Walton sees a group that’s playing some confident softball.

“I think, overall, they did a good job trusting themselves, number one. That’s the key. My job is to try to instill confidence in them. That’s what I really try to do.”

Perhaps Florida could use some belief at the plate in their second game, but either way, Walton appears to have faith in his team’s mindset after they were a little off their fastball in the super regional.