Florida Softball Head Coach Tim Walton Explains Why Keagan Rothrock Didn’t Pitch in WCWS Loss to Tennessee
Florida’s ace Keagan Rothrock has been a go-to starting pitcher since her freshman season with the Gators, but after giving up three home runs to Texas on the opening day of the Women’s College World Series, she didn’t see the mound during the win-or-go-home game versus Tennessee on Friday.
Aside from one homer in the second inning, Rothrock had been in a pitcher’s duel with Texas’ ace Teagan Kavan into the sixth inning. Though she gave up the other two bombs, it doesn’t quite make sense why you wouldn’t give your ace another shot in an elimination game.
Florida went through three pitchers in the 11-3 run-rule loss against Tennessee and using Rothrock may have been a game-changer.
Florida's Tim Walton chose not to start ace Keagan Rothrock in an elimination game tonight and it's burned the Gators.
— Eli Lederman (@ByEliLederman) May 30, 2025
Per @ESPNStatsInfo, Tennessee's seven first-inning runs were the most scored by any team in a WCWS game since Florida's 11-run first-inning vs Alabama in 2011.
But when asked in the post-game press conference why Rothrock never saw the circle, head coach Tim Walton expressed concern for a blister on her pitching hand that has been bothering her since Super Regionals against Georgia.
“We’ve been fighting a blister with Keagan for a while and that just came apart yesterday,” Walton said. “Keagan would have started today. It just didn’t make sense for us to throw her out there and try to go through however many games in a row (battling the blister). We had a long road to go, and you know, you blow her out in the first inning of the game, and then what? The decision was really to just try to go as much as we can with everybody else, given the circumstance.”
Florida ends its season on a very short trip to the Women's College World Series, after making its third trip in the last three years.
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Nicole Reitz graduated from Indiana University Indianapolis with a degree in sports journalism in 2022 and has been writing about softball and baseball since 2018 .Her work has been published in various publications like Softball America, the Indianapolis Star, and SoxOn35th.
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