In Sooners' amazing new digs, it's the Jennings and Brito show
In Sooners' amazing new digs, it's the Jennings and Brito show
For starters, the stadium’s amazing and not just because 4,000-plus fans can comfortably fit inside it.
For Patty Gasso, believe it or not, it might be the concourse, above the seats, that blow her away the most.
“I was like, ‘Look at all this room,’ she said of her Friday stroll around the new digs. “People can really, like, five people can walk together.”
Or 10 or 20.
Compared to the stadium surrounding Marita Hynes Field, the old place, the word for the new one, Love’s Field, is sprawling.
It feels big because it is big.
Being big, said Gasso, it feels like something else, too.
“It’s very spacious, it’s very comfortable … you can feel the crowd,” the longtime Sooner skipper said. “You felt it at Marita Hynes, but this is different. This is World Series feel.”
All but for the competition Oklahoma has faced inside it thus far.
The opponents on Day 2 of the Miracle on Jenkins were Louisiana and Liberty and, though Miami (Ohio) put a scare into the Sooners on Friday, scoring four runs in the top of the seventh to tie it up, such was not the case against the Ragin’ Cajuns nor Flames.
Needing 10 innings, total, to beat both, OU (18-0) first topped Louisiana 8-0 and next Liberty 15-3, each of the Flames’ runs coming in the top of the fifth on back-to-back home runs from Megan Fortner and JaMaya Byron out of the seven- and eight-holes in the Flames’ order off Kelly Maxwell, who entered only to pitch that one inning.
What’s up with that?
Perhaps nothing.
Things happen.
And that little piece of Saturday aside … well, can we just stop and appreciate two players.
Because maybe, this season will be remembered as the Tiare Jennings and Alyssa Brito Show.
It’s early, but not that early.
OU’s played 18 games and only two remain before opening Big 12 Conference play against Iowa State March 8 in Norman.
Also, both Jennings and Brito are separating themselves from their teammates and Saturday was another case study. They’re terrific stories, too, though in quite different ways.
Jennings began the day hitting .404 with five home runs, leading OU with 17 RBIs and trailing only Brito with an .809 slugging percentage.
Brito began the day hitting .426 with a team-high six home runs, a second-best 15 RBIs and an .894 slugging percentage.
On the day, Jennings went 3 for 5, drove in four, hit an absolute tape-measure home run into the last row of the bleachers in left-center field and a double.
She’s now hitting .423 with six home runs, 21 RBIs, getting on base at a .484 clip, slugging .865 and 11 of her 21 hits have gone for extra bases.
Brito went 4 for 5, drove in four, scored five runs, smashed a home run, lashed three doubles and reached base two additional times drawing walks.
She’s now hitting .462, getting on base at a .533 clip, slugging a cool 1.000, her home run total’s now at seven, her RBI count’s up to 19 and 13 of her 24 hits have gone for extra bases.
Kasidi Pickering is hitting a team-high .476 and Rylie Boone .455, each with on-base-percentages north of .500, though neither is approaching a slugging percentage of .800 and the three home runs between them all belonging to Pickering.
The point?
It’s a roster of great players, but Brito and Jennings carry the most weight and you should know more about them.
Like, has a hitter ever improved the way Brito has since arriving at OU following her freshman season at Oregon?
She hit .299 in Eugene and, last season, .368 in Norman, going deep 14 times.
Right now, she looks like a brand new hitter all over again.
If you’re trying the understand the mad genius hitting coach J.T. Gasso’s become, Brito can’t help. If merely trying to confirm he’s a mad genius, she has you covered.
“I think I had a hitting coach that poured into me,” Brito said of the difference between being a Duck and Sooner. “Being a sponge, honestly, the last couple of years has been really cool … like night and day.”
Every time she walks into the batter’s box, Brito said, she steps in with confidence and a plan.
She didn’t before.
In the meantime, nobody’s getting her out.
For Jennings, it’s really more of the same.
Also, here’s a theory:
Because her time at OU overlapped with Jocelyn Alo’s, we have not fully digested Jennings’ genius at the plate.
Yet, her first three seasons in the program have been better than Alo’s first three seasons were in the program.
Alo, of course, went off in both of her senior years, smashing 34 home runs in each, driving in 174 between the two, batting .475 one season and .515 the next.
Jennings may not turn in a season like that in this, her final campaign, but Jiminy Christmas, check out her body of work.
The home run she hit Saturday was her 79th since arrival and should she finish the season with her freshman year total of 27, she’ll pass Lauren Chamberlain’s one-time NCAA record of 95.
“Tiare is the most clutch hitter that I’ve ever seen,” Gasso said. “… She’ll go down as one of the best in softball history here.”
Like top three or four.
Nor does she merely hit.
A second baseman for three seasons, she’s OU’s shortstop now and has yet to commit an error, which counts.
Summarizing, the Sooners are 18-0, the winning streak’s reached 67 and the monsters of OU’s midway appear to have been identified.
Even if they drop a game or two, or five, along the way, there’s two terrific stories in the Sooner batting order that should make for great watching all season long.