TOURNAMENT HOMEPAGE
 
PENSACOLA, Fla. – The second-ranked University of West Florida softball team kept its season alive with a come-from-behind win over Valdosta State on Friday night, a few hours after falling to Tampa. The Argonauts are now 49-9 on the year with the split day, and UWF has advanced into the South 1 Region Final on Saturday where the team will play Tampa.
 
West Florida will need to defeat Tampa twice on Saturday to move to the NCAA South Super Regional and keep its season going, with first pitch beginning at 1 pm at the UWF Softball Complex.
 
Grace Gilbert, Mika Garcia, and Teala Howard each had three hits on the day, and Kelsey Sweatt threw 10.2 innings and allowed just one earned run – good for a 0.66 ERA on Friday.
 
GAME 1: UWF 0, Tampa 1 (8 innings)
Kelsey Sweatt and Makaleigh Dooley made UWF's first game of the day a classic pitcher's duel, with the duo allowing just nine hits, one run, and two walks while striking out seven batters, across 15.2 combined innings.
 
Sweatt was the tough-luck loser against the two-time Sunshine State Conference Pitcher of the Year, spinning her 16th complete game of the year and allowing just a single run over 7.2 innings of strong work. Sweatt lowered her ERA to a conference-best 1.47 and issued only one walk against five strikeouts.
 
The first inning proved to be UWF's best opportunity to score, when Rhiannon Sassman and Teala Howard each singled to lead off the game. Dooley prevailed in the first, however, retiring the next three Argonauts she faced.
 
The Argos ran into some bad luck offensively in the second and third innings that held UWF scoreless. Courtney McLellan led off the second with a single and advanced to third on back-to-back sacrifice bunts from Grace Gilbert and Mallory Vining. Mika Garcia followed with an excellent 12-pitch at-bat that ended with a short-hop grounder to Tampa shortstop Stephanie Balmer to end the inning.
 
In the third, Sassman led off with a walk and a hard liner from Howard went right to Balmer and resulted in a double play to end the UWF threat.
 
Sweatt and Dooley traded zeroes until the bottom of the eighth, when the Spartans led off the inning with a single from Bailey Phillips. After a pair of sacrifice bunts moved pinch-runner Breanna Taphouse to third with two away, Lexie Chevalier hit a bloop single that dropped in the infield and allowed the run to score and end the game.
 
GAME 2: UWF 4, Valdosta State 3
Kathleen Smiley's sixth-inning home run gave West Florida the 4-3 lead with an inning-and-a-half to go, and Sweatt kept VSU scoreless in those final two frames to earn her 19th win of the season.
 
Sweatt came in relief of Grace Gilbert, who allowed just two baserunners over her last three innings in the circle on Friday night. VSU scratched across three runs against Gilbert in the first, but the sophomore settled in nicely and retired 9 of the last 11 batters she faced.
 
Sweatt earned the win after going three scoreless innings a few hours after throwing the complete game against Tampa. She improved to 19-3 with the win and lowered her GSC-best ERA even more, to 1.44 on the year.  
 
West Florida got the scoring going early, with Teala Howard scoring on a passed ball in the first inning. After VSU put up three runs in the bottom half of the inning, Gilbert and Valdosta State starter Caylie Van Auken traded zeroes until the fifth, when Gilbert led off the inning with a single.
 
Just two batters later, Mika Garcia ripped a triple down the right field line to score Gilbert, and Sassman brought Garcia in with a ground ball a batter after that to even things up at 3-3.
 
Smiley then led off the sixth with her fifth home run of the season – a monster shot to center field – to put West Florida in control with the final 4-3 lead.
 
Gilbert, Howard, and Garcia finished the game with two hits apiece.