UF and SFCC produce diamond queen

It was just a crosstown scrimmage.

Who knew the games last fall would spawn the spring dominance of a pair of college softball programs?

Maybe Katy Murphree did. Murphree was the sophomore Santa Fe Community College pitcher who held a deep Florida lineup to just a run in a 1-0 loss at UF's Pressly Softball Stadium. Florida won the second game of the doubleheader 3-0 to complete the sweep, but Santa Fe players walked out of the lighted, brick ballpark feeling confident about the way they played.

"We competed against an upper-level Division I team," Murphree said. "Later that fall, we beat UCF 1-0, so we rose to the level of play of our competition. It made us realize that if we worked hard, we could achieve anything this season."

Nowadays, you can call Gainesville softball city. Both Florida and Santa Fe enter critical postseason stretches this week ranked No. 1 in the country, with a combined record of 118-5-1.

Florida (62-2) has won 35 straight to rise to No. 1 in the Division I rankings. The Gators will host Georgia Tech in an opening round NCAA regional tournament game Friday as the top overall seed in the 64-team tournament, a spot normally reserved for traditional D-I softball powers Arizona or UCLA.

"It doesn't surprise me at all," Santa Fe coach Chris Ahern said. "I don't want to call them our sister program, but you could see last fall they had the talent to win a lot of games in a lot of different ways."

Santa Fe (56-3-1), which had a 32-game winning streak snapped last month, won its first junior college fast-pitch state title in school history to advance to today's opening-round of the National Junior College Athletic Association Softball National Championship against Spartanburg (S.C.) Methodist.

"Chris Ahern is a great coach," Florida softball coach Tim Walton said. "I don't know if you can say anything more than that. It's a good school to recruit to that has good facilities and good support . . . they have some good pitchers, they have some really good talented players so it's not surprising that they are No. 1 and on their way to a national championship right now."

Besides the yearly fall scrimmages, Ahern and Walton help each other out with summer camps. Other than that, the two coaches have managed to climb their teams to No. 1 on different paths while facing different obstacles.

Walton arrived at Florida from Wichita State three years ago, bringing an emphasis on discipline and attention to detail.

"He's a cross your T's, dot your I's, kind of guy," Florida senior outfielder Mary Ratliff said.

On road trips, Walton instituted a dress code of blouses and slacks or dresses for players. Males of the softball staff wear jackets, slacks and ties on the road.

"It's not just about how we act on the field and perform," Florida junior Kim Waleszonia said. "He wants us to conduct ourselves in a way to represent the university, pick up after ourselves, dress nice, and always telling us to do the right things."

In recruiting, Walton has scoured the nation for players. Nine of the 20 on UF's roster come from talent-rich California, including the battery of junior ace pitcher Stacey Nelson (Los Alamitos, Calif.) and sophomore power-hitting catcher Francesca Enea (Woodland Hills, Calif.). Nelson (40-2, 0.79 ERA) is a Division I player of the year candidate, while Enea leads Florida in home runs (14) and RBIs (51).

"We give them a hard time, being from California, because I'm from a completely different world, but they're pretty essential on this team," said Ratliff, a Kentucky native. "We don't think about where everybody is from. We all kind of have a team personality."

Said Nelson: "It's fun because you get to know so many different types of girls. Mary calls the Californians hippies. It's fun when you get to talk about your hometown or bring girls to your hometown.

"I'm not sugarcoating anything when I say that everyone on this team gets along."

Three more players are from Texas, while starting first baseman Ali Gardiner is from New York.

"It's a good blend, and I think it works to our advantage," Walton said. "These kids all have different backgrounds but the one thing they have in common is they all come from winning programs, and that's what I recruit, kids that are not only talented but that know how to win."

The UF softball program showed signs of improvement in Walton's second season, reaching the super regionals before falling at Texas A&M to finish with a 50-22 record. After Walton padded the roster with a third national recruiting class, Florida has taken the next step this season. The Gators haven't lost since a 1-0 game at Alabama on March 12, a span of more than two months.

The Gators avenged that loss with a 4-1 win against Alabama on Saturday to win their first Southeastern Conference Tournament championship in school history. Ratliff belted the game-winning grand slam in the bottom of the sixth inning.

"We never think we're out of any game," Ratliff said.

As a result of Florida's success, seats at Pressly Stadium have been harder to come by. Crowds are livelier.

"Fans are cheering, getting rowdy, getting mad at the umpire," Waleszonia said. "I haven't seen that from Gainesville and it's just really exciting because the community is getting involved."

On the wall in Santa Fe's chain-link softball field fence hang Mid-Florida Conference championship banners from 2005, 2006 and 2007.

"We should have room for the new banner when it comes," Ahern said.

Santa Fe clinched its first state title in school history earlier this month with an 8-4 win over Tallahassee Community College. Murphree, a Tallahassee native who will attend Marshall on a softball scholarship next fall, pitched the Saints to the tournament title, posting a 0.58 earned run average while striking out 18 in 24.2 innings.

In her sixth season at Santa Fe, Ahern has built a junior college softball power on a modest budget. The school provides lawn service for the outfield grass, but players on the team line and rake the dirt infield. Asked if the program has ever considered installing lights on the field, Ahern responded: "It would take a very generous donation from someone for that to happen. We just don't have money for that in the budget right now."

Unlike Florida, Santa Fe's team is more homegrown. As a state junior college, Ahern is limited to carrying just four out-of-state players on her roster. The Saints have just two out-of-state players on a roster of 15.

"As a feeder school to the University of Florida, we've been able to attract quality students and quality athletes from the state, whether they want to go on to play softball at Florida or just go there as students," Ahern said. "We've been able to send some players to schools throughout the country, but sometimes it's hard to convince them to go north to the colder weather."

On the field, Santa Fe has won with a blend of power, pitching and speed. Unity has helped, too. Murphree said most of the players live together, eat together and get together to watch movies. "A League of Their Own" is a favorite.

"I like the Rosie O'Donnell character," Murphree said.

Ahern said the closeness has helped Santa Fe reach its current No. 1 ranking in the NJCAA poll.

"They are an amazing group of kids who work well together and are supportive of each other," Ahern said. "On the field, they step up for each other. If one player is down, another one picks them up."

Contact Kevin Brockway at 352-374-5054 or brockwk@gvillesun.com.