UF’s Korbe Otis swings Sunday against UIC at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium. [Lee Ann Anderson/WRUF]

Florida Softball Plays Georgia In SEC Tournament Quarterfinals On Friday

Second seed Florida, the conference regular-season runner-up, plays seven seed Georgia in the quarterfinal round Friday morning of the SEC Tournament in Auburn, Ala.

Game time was scheduled for 10 a.m. ET (SEC Network, ESPN 98.1-FM/850-AM WRUF), but will now start after the conclusion of the Arkansas-Missouri game from last night. The game was moved to Friday because of inclement weather.

Florida (43-12), which has won six of its last seven games against Top-25 competition, took the season series against Georgia in Athens, Ga., 2-1 with wins of 9-1 (5 innings) and 10-7, but dropped Game 2 of the series 11-6 in the last weekend of April.

The Gators, ranked No. 7 in the nation, hold a team batting average of .344, the best in program history, while the .601 slugging percentage ranks second and the .451 on-base percentage ranks first.

Korbe Otis, coming off SEC Player of the Week honors, leads the Gators. The junior outfielder batted .636 (7-for-11) with 10 RBI, nine runs scored, two doubles and a pair of home runs in wins last week against FSU and Texas A&M. For the season, Otis owns a .455 batting average that includes 66 hits, 64 runs, 50 RBI and 50 walks. Otis is the only player in the nation to hold a stat line of 60-plus hits and runs in addition to 50-plus RBI and walks.

Georgia (39-15), ranked No. 14 in the nation, entered the tourney having lost back-to-back series to UF and Mississippi State. Georgia defeated No.10-seed Auburn in walk-off fashion 6-5 (14 innings) Wednesday night in the longest game in tournament history at four hours and 21 minutes.

The UF-UGA winner will play the winner of Friday’s other quarterfinal between three seed Texas A&M and 11 seed South Carolina in the tourney semifinal at about 6:30 p.m. ET Friday (ESPN2) at Jane B. Moore Field. Saturday’s championship game is scheduled for 5 p.m. ET on ESPN2.

 

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