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.
🚨Schedule Update🚨
Our quarterfinal game with Georgia will take place following the conclusion of the Missouri & Arkansas game that is now scheduled to resume at 9 AM CT/10 AM ET tomorrow morning.
That game was halted in the top of the fifth inning due to lightning and… https://t.co/MOgPm8YAIQ
— Gators Softball (@GatorsSB) May 10, 2024
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.
Hey from the top-8 👀👋 pic.twitter.com/B9rblq21Dk
— Gators Softball (@GatorsSB) May 7, 2024
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.
📍Auburn, Ala.
2024 SEC Tournament 🔜 pic.twitter.com/N1Tdlf1FN6
— Gators Softball (@GatorsSB) May 8, 2024
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.