Sooners will struggle to dominate as they have
Early returns leave room to wonder, while pitching remains real question mark
NORMAN — The early results say it won’t be the same.
Any objective look at the pitching staff says it’s unlikely to be the same.
Nor is time on their side because utter, utter, utter dominance is impossibly hard to maintain and coach Patty Gasso’s Sooners have already managed it three whole campaigns, going 190-8 since the 2021 season began.
That doesn’t mean Oklahoma is bound to fail to win a fourth straight Women’s College World Series championship, nor that it will continue adding to its 57-game winning streak.
The Sooners next five games, beginning Friday, each one in Lake Charles, Louisiana, are against Central Arkansas, McNeese State, Lamar and McNeese State and Central Arkansas again, so go right ahead and pretend the string’s reached 61 because by early Sunday afternoon it will have.
What you shouldn’t expect, however, is another season in which it’s OU and everybody else.
Recall the string of seasons following the Sooners’ 2013 national championship. They went 57-4 that year behind Keilani Ricketts and Lauren Chamberlain, before dropping 13 games, nine games, eight games and nine games the next four seasons.
The last two they won national championships nonetheless.
Perhaps they will again this year, but challenges are bound to mount.
Going 4-0 at the Puerto Vallarta Challenge last weekend, the Sooners only run-ruled Utah Valley, trailed 10th-ranked Washington until tying the game 3-3 in the sixth inning before winning in the eighth and found itself tied 3-3 with Long Beach State after five innings before exploding for six runs in the sixth.
Through four games, the Sooners’ collective batting average is .327 against last season’s .366, it’s slugging percentage .579 against last season’s .666, even while already clubbing eight home runs.
Of course, five straight games against Central Arkansas, McNeese State and Lamar may take care of any perceived offensive deficiencies so early in the season.
So there’s that.
Also, there’s defense and pitching to consider.
We’ll see how much the Sooners wind up missing the fabulous Grace Lyons as their everyday shortstop.
Great fielding is about more than avoiding errors, of course, but Tiare Jennings has at least done that, turning 19 chances into 11 assists and 8 putouts her first four turns at Lyons’ old spot.
Yet, there is this sticky nugget:
OU suffered six unearned runs all of last season, which is bananas, but against Washington the Sooners suffered three in the second inning alone.
Reason for alarm?
Perhaps.
Perhaps, because pitching is a question mark, too; like an actual, real, shouldn’t-be-understated question mark.
It may not be fair to Nicole May, but the idea the Sooners will go as far as Kelly Maxwell can take them in the circle is not crazy.
May, really, has never been more than the No. 3 option on her own team.
A year ago, even with a 0.91 earned run average against Alex Storako’s 1.15, it was clear Gasso favored Storako as her top option when giving Jordy Bahl a rest.
At the WCWS, May started OU’s third game, giving up two runs and four hits against Stanford before Bahl came in to win it, throwing four scoreless frames in relief.
In the second game of the championship series, after Bahl tossed a complete game shutout over Florida State in the first, Gasso came back with Storako, who gave up a run over four innings before Bahl finished it.
The year before, it was Bahl and Hope Trautwein in front of May.
And while the idea Maxwell left one Bedlam rival to join another last summer is quite the story, the second half of that story is the Sooners very much needed a No. 1 pitcher to emerge from the transfer portal and Maxwell’s it.
And though Maxwell’s been a wonderful collegiate pitcher, she’s nonetheless not been the equal of Bahl, Storako, Giselle Juarez, Paige Parker or Paige Lowary … unless, somehow, the crimson and cream uniform alone makes every Sooner 25 to 50 percent better than they were to begin with.
Maxwell entered last season’s Bedlam series carrying a 1.22 ERA, which is terrific, if not first-team All-America stuff, yet her next 34 1/3 innings to close the season her ERA was 3.05.
Like she hit a wall.
Maybe she’s happier here than she ever was there.
You never know.
Also, OU’s 3-0 victory over No. 9 Duke last Thursday was all her: 7 innings, 4 hits, 8 strikeouts, 2 walks that didn’t matter.
May faced Washington.
None of her runs were earned, but she gave up a walk and two singles in the frame all three were scored before being lifted after four innings.
It’s something to watch and understand.
Because it’s not last season. Nor the season before last season.
It’s different.
OU’s No. 1 and deserves it.
But it’s tenuous.
Not the same.