After a rain out on Wednesday night, Kentucky and Florida would meet early Thursday morning of the 2023 SEC Softball Tournament in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Fresh off a thrilling weekend in Lexington, Kentucky, Kentucky, and Florida would meet again in the first round of the SEC Tournament on Thursday afternoon. Facing an early elimination in the 2023 SEC Tournament, softball fans from across the conference expected Kentucky and Florida to deliver an instant classic for softball fans.

Kentucky and Florida seemed deadlocked until the bottom half of the 5th inning when Florida put together a three-run inning to give the Gators a 5-2 advantage over the Wildcats heading to the final two innings. Skylar Wallace would get things popping for the Gators with a solo shot to deep right field to give Florida a little juice with a 3-2 lead over Kentucky. Florida would follow up the solo shot from Skylar Wallace with two more runs in the 5th to make it 5-2 Florida, heading to the final two innings. Nothing for Kentucky in the 6th would allow Florida to carry the momentum to the bottom of the 6th, where the Gators would add a 6th run to give them more insurance over the Wildcats.

No runs on a two-out base hit for the Wildcats in the top half of the 7th inning would secure a 6-2 first-round win for the Florida Gators. With the win over Kentucky, Florida will now advance to the second round of the 2023 SEC Softball Tournament, where they will face the Tennessee Lady Vols.

Florida will be coming into the matchup on Friday morning with revenge on its mind as the Gators will look to avenge the Tennessee sweep that happened earlier this season. Florida gave up 30 runs to Tennessee in the first three games between the two. Florida will look to keep the Volunteers off the board to slow the regular season champion down.