Kelly Barnhill throws 2-hitter in Florida win

Holly Rowe walked through the gates at Hall of Fame Stadium and took a moment to reflect. The veteran ESPN sideline reporter has come to Oklahoma City each summer for more than a decade now. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I got all choked up,” she told “I just want to be here with my whole heart.”

Competitors at the Women’s College World Series this week grew up watching ESPN’s coverage team — Beth Mowins, Michele Smith, Jessica Mendoza and Rowe — bring softball into the national spotlight, catapulting the sport’s popularity to new heights with a continuity that created deep bonds between reporter and athlete.

For Rowe, the softball community has given back more than she could have imagined.

She arrived in OKC this week in the midst of a two-year battle with skin cancer, desmoplastic melanoma, and currently receives immunotherapy treatment once every three weeks.

Through a monthlong stretch of daily chemotherapy last spring that Rowe called “literally the worst time of my life,” the entire UCLA softball team visited Rowe at her Utah home when the Bruins were in town to play the Utes.

“There are so many things that she has done for our sport,” UCLA coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said. “She’ll take the girls aside and talk to them about how to be successful, about how to market themselves, about how to deal with adversity, about how to be a great mom ... I believe she will win this battle because she’s such a fighter.”

During a fall trip to Washington to cover college football last season, the Huskies’ softball team offered up their office as a dedicated space for Rowe to rest and recover from her ongoing treatment. Players wrote encouraging messages on a whiteboard — “Our fight is nothing like your fight, but we hope to see you in OKC!”

“In a time where I need some help, it’s uncomfortable to have to ask for help and feel vulnerable, the softball team was there for me,” Rowe said. “Not only did they say, ‘OK, you can use our office,’ they went an extra step to make me feel supported.”

The love has only grown stronger as the softball world turns its attention to Oklahoma City. Florida coach Tim Walton said: “She just brings something to our women that I just haven’t seen somebody in her position do. It’s a very trusting, very genuine approach to how to be a strong female ... We’ve been rooting for her obviously for a long time, but now more than ever.”

Rowe manages treatment fatigue with her job duties, but staying busy has become essential in her fight against cancer, even calling her work at the WCWS “a beautiful distraction.” Rowe received good news as of late. A recent scan revealed shrinking tumors. Her fight continues.

Rowe was all smiles Thursday night as she covered her first games of the WCWS, her difficult diagnosis not visible to those in attendance at Hall of Fame Stadium. It’s a reflection of strength she sees on the field every summer she comes back to Oklahoma City.

“I often think to myself, softball players are my spirit animal,” Rowe said. “Every time I see them, they are carrying their own bags, they’re dirty and they’re sweaty. They have zero glamour in what they’re doing, and yet they love it. I just admire them so much.”

Kelly Barnhill threw her second straight shutout in the Women’s College World Series, allowing two hits and striking out eight in top-seeded Florida’s 7-0 victory over LSU on Friday night.

Barnhill (26-3), USA Softball’s Player of the Year, helped put the Gators (57-8) within one victory Sunday of a spot in the championship series. On Thursday, Florida opened with an 8-0 victory over Texas A&M.

Chelsea Herndon doubled to score two in the top of the fourth.

Janell Wheaton hit a solo homer in the top of the sixth and Kayli Kvistad hit a two-run homer in the seventh.

Ocasio made perhaps the play of the game in the second inning when she ran into foul territory and caught a pop fly as she fell over a barrier.

LSU starter Carly Hoover (15-8) allowed two runs on four hits in five innings, and Allie Walljasper struggled in relief.

The Tigers (48-21) will play in an elimination game Saturday.