Patty Gasso rolled the dice. One ferocious swing from Katie Stewart told the (final) story.
Let’s break the fourth wall.
Let’s break the fourth wall because I had it all figured out, only for Patty Gasso to flip the script, only for Katie Stewart to flip it again.
I was quite pleased with myself.
The Sooners continue to enjoy a groundbreaking offensive season, led, kind of, by super freshman Kendall Wells.
Led only kind of by Wells because she’s hit 31 home runs in a season just 44 games old. Should she hit only four more, it will be more than even the great Jocelyn Alo ever hit in a single season.
And yet, she still plays on a team that’s hit 119 other home runs, includes eight players hitting north of .400 and six with on-base percentages north of .500.
How can a player be both historic and just another cog in the machine? You’d think it not possible, yet it’s exactly what Wells is doing.
Wild.
If I had any luck, that would be the story, built around a third straight victory from second-ranked Oklahoma over fourth-ranked Texas despite the Longhorns’ home-field advantage.
Then I realized what Gasso was doing with her pitching staff and it was flooring.
Given the chance to move from No. 2 to No. 1 thanks to Utah’s victory over No. 1 Texas Tech the day before, and certainly preferring to sweep her Red River rival than merely win two of three, what did the Sooner coach do?
She made it a bullpen game.
Staff ace Audrey Lowry threw 90 pitches in an efficient complete game shutout over the ’Horns on Friday and another 11 for the save on Saturday, leaving her plenty fresh to take the ball again on Sunday.
Gasso went another direction.
She trotted out Sidney Berzon for 2 1/3 and, though she seemed to be pitching well enough, brought out Kierston Deal and her 9.73 earned run average to record three outs.
Deal, who allowed a hit and hit a batter, wound up being the only Sooner pitcher not to allow a run, so good deal for Deal.
Gasso then went with Berkley Zache, who worked an inning and a third, before bringing out Allyssa Parker for an inning and a third.
After all that it was 5-5, but it was beside the point for Gasso, who put the premium on getting her back-of-the-bullpen pitchers experience against a great team in a hostile environment over winning.
Not until the seventh did Lowry enter and winning become the priority.
Don’t take it as a slap against the finest softball coach in the history of the game, owner of eight national championships since 2000, back when there was a hospitality pirate ship beyond center field, berms for seating and the Sooners won it all wearing shorts.
No, Gasso’s earned the right to coach however she chooses, and that’s what she did on Sunday. And when an infield hit from Kai Minor plated Sydney Barker in the seventh, yet again I had my story.
Though she’d made it a bullpen game, though the Sooner coach had put development over winning, her team would win anyway, having taken a 6-5 edge, its first of the game, in the top of the eighth.
Because what could go wrong? Her ace was in the circle, needing three more outs, just like the three she’d gotten in the previous frame.
As it turned out, plenty.
Hannah Wells, pinch-hitting for Alisa Sneed, greeted Lowry with a shot that went a mile high, caught some wind and came down a couple feet right and beyond the left-field foul pole.
That tied it.
And after Kayden Henry, who’d spotted Texas an early 3-0 lead on a second-inning blast that just cleared the center-field fence, beat out an infield chopper, Stewart — who’d gone deep in the sixth to put the Longhorns up 5-3, her 21st home run of the season — stepped to the plate again.
Here came the real story.
Sometimes, it turns out, it’s delivered by the opponent.
Lowry delivered a fastball out over the plate and the right-handed Stewart hit the longest home run any of us have ever seen, sending the ball three stories high and off the facade of the student housing complex beyond left field, across the street from the stadium.
Like, you know how Harmon Killebrew, Frank Howard, Cecil Fielder and Marc McGwire are the only four to ever hit a ball completely out of old Tiger Stadium?
Stewart’s shot was like that.
Or how, back in the day, on a pre-Big Show SportsCenter, Chris Berman anchoring, “The Bull,” Greg Luzinski, might hit one onto the roof at old Comiskey?
Stewart’s shot was like that, too.
It was mesmerizing and stupendous, impossible yet in your face, and you can go watch it right here. Even if you’re a Sooner fan, you’re crazy if you can’t enjoy it.
OU took two of three in Austin, so let Stewart and Texas have this one.
Almost a line drive, majestic it may not quite have been. More like screaming for vengeance, a Judas Priest home run.
If you know, you know.
If not, look it up.
Great album.
The diamond sports are so great because they give you stuff like this.
OU has hit 150 home runs, averages more than three per game and needs only 10 more to break their own record of 159 set in 2021.
The Sooners are also on pace to set all-time single-season team marks in batting average, on-base percentage, runs per game, slugging percentage and total bases.
They’re a historic force and might have enough pitching to win it all again, pushing the program’s, and Gasso’s, national championship count to nine.
But Sunday, they were on the wrong side of a highlight that was worth seeing despite the price; forcing my hand, making me ditch one story for another, after ditching one story for another.
Maybe I told them all anyway.
You make the call, you own the result.
Patty Gasso chose development over winning when the #1 ranking was on the line. Used her whole bullpen instead of her ace. Her gamble. Katie Stewart’s moonshot was just the bill coming due.
Eight national championships buy you the right to coach however you want. Don’t buy you immunity from the scoreboard. Gasso knows that. That’s why she’s won eight and why she’ll win more.
She rolled the dice because she could afford to. Oklahoma’s so dominant one April loss won’t kill their season. Stewart just reminded everyone the scoreboard doesn’t care about your resume or your philosophy or your eight rings. Only cares about the last swing.
Good coaches develop players. Great coaches win the games in front of them. The greatest know the difference and live with their choices.
That’s sports. That’s leadership. The scoreboard tells you what your decisions were worth.