Baylor's hot start helps Bears beat Florida softball, setting up a win-or-go-home Game 3 Sunday

Before some patrons in the capacity crowd found their seats Saturday morning, a hush fell over Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium.

These Gator fans expected to see a celebration Saturday, with Florida clinching its first Women's College World Series bid in two years.

Instead, they saw Shaylon Govan blast a three-run homer right into the sunflowers in left center.

The Gators never fully recovered and fell 5-2 to Baylor Saturday afternoon at KSP, setting up a winner-take-all game three of the Gainesville Super Regionals Sunday. The loss was Florida's first since Georgia on April 27 and ended the squad's 12 game win streak.

Saturday's game drew the second-largest crowd in KSP history at 2,761, just behind Super Regionals in 2019 vs Tennessee at 3,140.

Florida has also lost its last five home Game 2s of Super Regionals. The program is 5-1 all-time in Game 3s of Supers and has never lost at home.

"I appreciate our fans. They did everything in their power to get the energy going," coach Tim Walton said. "Baylor played a good game, good defense, good hitting. They were better."

Baylor's total frenzy in the first forced Walton to pull starter Keagan Rothrock with no outs on the board.

It was the freshman's shortest start of the season. Walton handed the rock to fellow freshman Ava Brown.

Brown performed well given the situation. She allowed two earned runs in six innings of work, her longest showing since her start May 4 vs Texas A&M.

Florida's offense, though, failed to pick up the slack. Reagan Walsh homered to lead off the second, but Florida didn't score any more for the next three innings.

In the third, UF had runners on first and second for Erickson and Walsh, two of its power hitters.

However both struck out to end the inning. In the fifth, Florida finally put a run on the board as Skylar Wallace drove in her RBI 67th RBI of the year with a single.

Walton believed in the fourth inning nerves began to creep in for the team.

"All of a sudden we started to try too hard again," Walton said. "I like this team the way they prepare and way they compete, but we do try too hard at times."

UF couldn't score another run in the last two innings, and the Bears added an insurance run in the sixth to push the lead to three.

Baylor's defense further frustrated Florida's hitters. The Bears made three diving catches and committed zero errors.

"It's frustrating, because I I don't think that they should shut us out to two runs, but sometimes that happens," Skylar Wallace said. "I think we they just did a really good job executing in those moments and we did not."

Walton, though, believes the team didn't hit any worse Saturday than Friday in the 4-2 game one win. As such, he believes a change in mindset is needed.

"We need a little bit more not trying to get hits," Walton said. "Trying to get hits sounds like the goal, but you're going to get out. The goal is to find a good pitch. You got to be on time to find a good pitch. You got to put a good swing on it. And then with that comes line drives, line drives equal hits."

A common theme of Florida's season has been its ability to bounce back from losses. It lost back-to-back games just once this season, and Wallace knows Saturday's loss will once again refocus the squad.

"This team has a lot left in the tank. We just got away from who we are as Gators," Wallace said. "This game was a game of failure, so we just got to bounce back a little bit better. I think that was a good little shake for us, and knowing that tomorrow we're going to really get after and just trust each other."

When does Florida softball play Baylor in the Gainesville Super Regional?

First pitch for Sunday is set for 2 p.m.

TV is TBD.

Noah Ram covers Gainesville-area high school sports and University of Florida athletics for The Gainesville Sun. Contact him at Nram@gannett.com and follow him @Noah_ram1 on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Florida softball falls 5-2 to Baylor in Game 2 of NCAA Gainesville Super Regionals