'Horns have the advantage, though Sooners, as they proved again, are an extremely hard team to kill
Texas has the advantage.
There’s no way Texas does not have the advantage.
Everything tells us Texas has the advantage.
The Longhorns have played fewer games and will be the more rested team.
They count two pitchers they can trust, which is 100 percent more than the Sooners, and those two pitchers, who’ve thrown all their pitches since the Women’s College World Series began, have allowed three hits, total, over 19 innings, while Sooner pitching has allowed 19 over 27, which is plenty good, but not close to the thus-far mastery of Teagan Kavan and Mac Moore.
So there's no question.
Texas has the advantage.
Also?
Also, eliminating Oklahoma is exceedingly hard to do and that’s what what happened Tuesday afternoon at Devon Park is all about.
Florida led by two runs.
Then it was tied.
Florida led by two runs again, and then three.
Then it was a one-run game again.
Then it was tied.
Then, the fourth pitch into Jayda Coleman’s fifth plate appearance, in the eighth inning, after she’d popped out on the first pitch in the sixth, landed just beyond the left-field fence, an opposite-field shot stubbornly carrying out of the park, giving OU a 6-5 victory, vanquishing the Gators, who'd stopped the Sooners 9-3 just the day before.
Maybe an hour earlier, an hour and a half, they looked like they were cooked, yet the best don’t die easily. Not when so many can play the hero and the Sooners were full of them.
There was Kelly Maxwell, who’s fairly certain, unless Patty Gasso’s prepared to start her in all three championship series tilts, to get the day off today, resurrecting herself in the circle after giving up five runs and three home runs the first three innings.
Holding the Gators down the last five, she retired the side in order three times and extricated herself from two-on, two-out pressure-cookers twice.
There was Ella Parker, who kept OU close early with a two-run first-inning home run to straight-away center that might never have risen even 15 feet in the air she hit it so hard …
Who later, trying to turn a single into a double, should have been out at second base but for Florida shortstop Skylar Wallace blocking the bag and, in so doing, put her left shoulder directly into Parker’s face, fortunately guarded by a facemask, though both players needed a few minutes to get back to their feet …
Who then returned to the game after being replaced defensively to bat in the very next inning, delivering a two-out single up the middle that tied the game, plating Avery Hodge, who made the most of her World Series opportunity, going 2 for 4 and, more importantly, doubling herself into scoring position so Parker could drive her home.
Not to mention Cydney Sanders, whose fourth-inning two-run home run over center field brought the Sooners right back into the game, cutting Florida’s edge to a single run, 5-4, bringing home Kasidi Pickering and herself the immediate half inning after Maxwell retired the Gators in order for the first time.
Coleman then went deep and the contest ended the very moment OU secured its first lead.
As mentioned, back during the Norman Regional, winning big is always best, for its easier on the nerves, the pitching staff and there’s always the fact putting a bunch of runs between yourself and the opposition is the easiest path to victory.
Nevertheless, every time Gasso decided a tight fit suited her squad better than a no-doubter, she was thinking about games like this one, when the opponent gives no shakes it’s playing the team with “Oklahoma” on its jersey, can really pitch and hit and everything’s bound to be hard.
Don’t let it be said Gasso’s Sooners are pure frontrunners.
That’s usually where they are and where they’ve tended to be, but they’re a hellacious foe, too, when you’ve got the lead, everything’s in your favor, and all you must do put them away.
“I don’t know that I could tell you that I believed that we would be here again, because it’s so difficult to get here,” Gasso said. “The way we did it was wonderful. We’re blessed.”
It’s a different vibe, and maybe that’s part of the reason they made it through, too.
Listening to Gasso, you get the feeling she’d be all right with not being “here again,” because so much of the pressure’s off and the Sooners have played like it ever since the third day of the Bedlam series when, no longer fearing failure, they salvaged the last game and were thrilled to have done it, the joy finally back.
Maybe that.
None of which takes the advantage away from Texas and gives it to OU.
Longhorn pitchers have thrown three straight one-hitters for crying out loud.
Of course, two of those came against light-hitting Stanford (and one against Florida, too).
And the Sooners are one tremendously tough out, much less 21 of them.
1. Why does Riley Boone often run forward in the batter's box when a pitch is thrown? Jayda Coleman sometimes does it, too. Doesn't this "change in perspective" make it harder to decide if the pitch will be a ball or a strike?
2. Many of the non-swinging strikes Cydney Sanders takes are over the inside edge. As the pitch is thrown, it appears she moves slightly inward toward the plate. Wouldn't that make the pitch appear that it's going to be inside and off the plate?
3. Why does OU take so many fat pitches early in the count? Surely the 'take' sign can't be on with virtually every 0-0, 1-0, or 2-1 count.
It's hard to disparage the job JT does as hitting coach, but those items puzzle me.
Phil Graham, Tulsa