Florida vs Florida State

TBT with Florida Gator Kelly Barnhill

TBT with Florida Gator Kelly Barnhill

For our Throwback Thursday this week, we're taking a look at freshman Florida Gator hurler Kelly Barnhill. Barnhill was FloSoftball's No. 2 ranked player in

Dec 4, 2015 by Sarah Hoffman
TBT with Florida Gator Kelly Barnhill
For our Throwback Thursday this week, we're taking a look at freshman Florida Gator hurler Kelly Barnhill.

Barnhill was FloSoftball's No. 2 ranked player in the class of 2015 and has started her Gator career off strong this season. In Florida's fall game against Florida State, Barnhill pitched four innings, giving up two hits, no runs, and fanning 10 batters! 

She is also one of four freshman across the country invited to the 2016 USA Softball Women's National Team Selection Camp January 2-8, 2016 in Irvine, California. Barnhill was a member on the 2015 USA Softball Women's Junior National Team last summer. 

In addition to playing with the Junior National Team in 2015, Barnhill won the 2015 Georgia Gatorade Player of the Year and 2015 USA Today Softball Player of the Year awards while playing travel ball with the EC Bullets Gold, coached by Greg Schnute.

As part of our documentary series The Program: Florida, we had the opportunity to catch up with Barnhill and watch in her action sporting the blue and orange. In this clip, she discusses her final decision on why and how she chose the Florida Gators.

See below to read the original story FloSoftball broke when Kelly first committed to Florida.

***Originally Published October 21, 2014
Breaking News: Kelly Barnhill Commits to Head Coach Tim Walton and the National Champion Florida Gators!

Kelly Barnhill, rated as the No. 1 pitcher in the senior class in the Full Count Softball Hot 100 released earlier this year, has long been undecided whether she would sign with Florida or Stanford.

That decision finally came Monday night as she texted several Gator recruits to let them know she would be joining them in Gainesville.  A couple of them reached out to Full Count Softball, but we were asked to wait until this morning to report as Kelly had not told the Stanford coaches when we first learned about 10 pm EST/ 7 pm PST.

Kelly Barnhill has hit 70+ mph on the radar gun and has a riseball that makes it hard not to chase.Ultimately, the chance to play closer to home -- Kelly is from Georgia and plays club ball with the East Cobb Bullets-Schnute team -- won out over the strong academics of Stanford, although the Cardinal, despite being on the other coast, did have another advantage in that several of Barnhill's family lives close to the Bay Area.

Kelly, who was rated as the No. 2 prospect in the 2015 class, took her official visit to the Univ. of Florida the weekend of October 11-12 along with several other elite recruits including Amanda Lorenz, rated as the No. 1 player in the senior class.

In the Hot 100 write-up for Kelly, it stated in part, "Throwing consistently in the 69-70 mph range (and having been clocked as high as 73 mph), Kelly also mixes in a rise and drop ball complemented by a change-up that can make batters look foolish. As a junior, she went 16-3 with a 0.52 ERA and limited opposing hitters to a .070 average to earn All-State honors for the second year in a row."

Another reason Kelly was so coveted is that she's a workhorse and can a team on her back, which she did at several events this year, ranging from the So Cal Athletics Invitational in June where she had 17 K's in one game and 11 in the next to Boulder where she helped the Bullets go deep into the playoff bracket to PGF Nationals where she struck out all 15 batters she faced in one six inning win (a teammate pitched the final inning).

At the A's Invitational, I interviewed Kelly and asked her about the recruiting process among other topics… here's that video clip: