Grand conclusion

• By DAMIAN FOLEY
• Special to The Advocate
• Published: May 11, 2008 - Page: 10C - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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“I said, ‘Please ball, go,’” recalled an exhausted Mary Ratliff, standing in the Florida dugout wearing her brand new, yet already sweat-stained, SEC Softball Tournament Champions T-shirt.

Moments earlier, with the No. 1-ranked and top-seeded Lady Gators trailing No. 2 seed Alabama 1-0 in the bottom of the sixth inning at Tiger Park, Ratliff stepped up to bat with two outs and the bases loaded, and the memory of what followed was only beginning to sink in.

“I just made an adjustment at the plate,” she shrugged. “Most of her pitches to me had been on the outer half of the plate, so I crowded the plate and she threw it inside. If it’s inside, you have to get around on it quick.”

Get around on it she did. Ratliff sent the ball sailing over the fence in right field for a grand slam and a 4-1 Gators lead, and tournament MVP Stacey Nelson shut the Crimson Tide out in the top of the seventh to give Florida (62-2) its first conference tournament championship.

“Winning (the tournament) for the first time is just awesome,” said Nelson (40-2), who claimed the MVP trophy after giving up one run on three hits with four strikeouts and no walks in her third victory of the tournament. The junior threw 15 innings and gave up just one earned run in three games, winning two and saving the third.

Despite putting up MVP-worthy numbers, Nelson left no doubt as to who she felt deserved the trophy for the tournament’s top player.

“I didn’t expect it,” she said. “I think it should go to Ratliff for getting that grand slam.”

Ratliff’s grand slam could not have come at a better time for Florida. Alabama (51-6) scored the game’s first run in the top of the sixth inning when Brittany Rogers scored from third on a Charlotte Morgan groundout to second. The RBI was Morgan’s 69th of the season, tying Ginger Jones for first-place all-time in the Alabama record books.

At that point Tide hurler Kelsi Dunne (22-4) was cruising, and even though she took the loss, the freshman still finished with six strikeouts and two walks in six innings.

“(Florida) just got the hit when they needed to,” said Alabama coach Pat Murphy. “I thought our one run was going to stand up because we were throwing a good game and playing good defense.”

But Dunne made one mistake in the circle, Ratliff got one hit in the game, and the combination of the two combined to give the nation’s top-ranked team its first tournament title in a conference that has overtaken the perennial powerhouse of the Pac-10 in strength. The NCAA’s RPI rankings list seven SEC teams among the nation’s top 20, compared to four for the Pac-10, and four in the top 10, compared to the Pac-10’s three.

All of which meant Tim Walton’s Gators had to run a proverbial gauntlet just to get to the championship game, where they faced Alabama — which is ranked No. 3 in the nation and No. 2 in terms of RPI.

“It’s one of those things that you know you don’t get caught up in numbers like that,” a Gatorade-drenched Walton said. “But when you start to develop the target on your back, to see a team respond on the road really says a lot about how they prepared themselves and how much they really focused on taking care of business this weekend.”