No. 23 Auburn softball (29-12, 7-5 SEC) avoided a sweep at the hands of No. 18 Florida with a 7-0 win in game three. Bri Ellis did all the damage and more than Maddie Penta needed with one swing of the bat in the first inning, as both stars continued to climb the leaderboards in the process.
With only one out recorded in the game, Ellis followed Denver Bryant's RBI single with a three-run line-drive home run to make it 4-0, her 10th of the season. It puts her at half of her 20 homers as a freshman, and her career total of 30 boosted her to 10th in program history as a sophomore.
Taking the mound with a four-run lead, Penta proved that to be more than enough. After taking a tough-luck loss in a complete-game, two-run effort in game one, she improved to 17-5 with her ninth complete game of the season, fifth shutout of the season and eighth double-digit strikeout performance of her junior year. Her 10 Ks in the game pushed her over the 200-K mark for her second straight season, putting her at 579 career Ks.
Those stars continue to make history with plenty of time left in their Auburn careers, and it's helping Auburn do big things as a team. Not only did Auburn shutout a ranked opponent on Saturday, but it got its first win in Gainesville, Florida, since 2017.
The win pushes Auburn to fourth in the SEC standings behind Georgia, Tennessee and half a game behind Kentucky. With 15 games remaining in the season, Auburn is also 10 wins shy of its total from last season, when it ended the regular season at 39-14.
In the series finale, Auburn got out to a hot start and a strong finish. The Tigers put up a four-spot in the first inning, which was ended by an acrobatic diving grab from Icess Tresvick in right field.
After a pitching change in the first inning, Florida's Lexie Delbrey came in and got in a groove, and the scoreboard went blank until the seventh inning. She went 6.2 innings, allowing no hits with eight Ks.
Shortly after rain started to fall in the seventh, the Florida pitcher put Jesse Blaine and Aubrie Lisenby on with HBPs. With two outs, the ball kept bouncing away from the Gators on two consecutive errors, allowing Blaine, Lisenby and Abbey Smith to come around to score. This gave Auburn a seven-run lead to work with, only needing three outs.
Sporting a comfortable lead, Penta finished the game with back-to-back swinging Ks to strand a pair of runners.
This made Florida 0-for-15 on the day with runners on base. Penta used her rise ball-changeup combination to perfection, as all 10 of her strikeouts came by the swing-and-miss.
Despite losing its first SEC series since the beginning of March versus Georgia, Auburn ended the weekend on a strong note going into an action-packed week consisting of a midweek contest at home versus Troy on Wednesday and a three-game weekend set at home versus LSU.
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