Week 13 OU Softball Report: Sooners claim regular season crown, yet begin postseason coming off losses
Author’s note: Though I’ll continue to write about Oklahoma softball during the program’s postseason run, this will be the final weekly update. The Sooners are now a postseason team, with the SEC tournament, regional play and, they hope, super regional and Women’s College World Series play remaining. I will be doing the same with Oklahoma baseball once coach Skip Johnson’s team turns toward the postseason.
The Skinny
Has a regular season conference championship ever felt so hollow as the one the Sooners just claimed their first year in the SEC?
Oklahoma won it after beating Florida in nine innings on Thursday of last week, netting yet another one-run decision, and then getting help from elsewhere to secure the crown and the No. 1 seed entering the SEC conference tourney, which begins for OU in the quarterfinal round on Thursday.
Next, the Sooners promptly lost their two remaining games in Gainesville as their bats never got fully busy and their pitching flat failed.
More on that below.
It’s a weird look.
The Sooners just won a conference crown in the most difficult conference in America, yet they’re full of question marks and sort of reeling entering the postseason.
Think about it like this:
It takes two losses to be eliminated in NCAA regional, super regional or world series play and at Florida, OU lost two consecutive games for the second time and two of three games for the third time.
The Sooners are not indomitable.
They’re also capable of being the best team in the nation, maybe not every week, but some weeks, and the SEC tournament gives them a chance to create serious momentum and claim the No. 1 national seed entering the postseason.
Take a look at the SEC teams (and their conference records) in the national RPI:
1. Texas A&M (16-7); 2. Florida (14-10); 3. Oklahoma (17-7); 5. Arkansas (14-10); 6. Tennessee (15-9); 7. LSU (12-12); 9. Texas (16-8); 10. South Carolina (13-11).
Perhaps any of the first six teams on that list would be in line for the No. 1 national seed by winning the conference tournament.
It’s funny, but living in the Big 12 and dominating it the way OU dominated it for so many regular seasons allowed the Sooners to build an air of invincibility entering postseason after postseason.
The SEC being so strong has changed all that.
Teams coming out of it are battle tested like squads from no other conference, but it’s much harder to come out of dominating because the competition is just too good.
It’s a new and different time.
The Schedule
Last week
— def. Florida 6-5 (9 innings)
— lost to Florida 9-4
— lost to Florida 6-4
This week
— vs. Mississippi State or LSU, 10 a.m. Thursday, SEC tournament quarterfinal
— vs. TBA, 3 p.m. Friday, SEC tournament semifinal (if victorious Thursday)
— vs. TBA, 4 p.m. Saturday, SEC tournament championship (if victorious Friday)
Record: 43-7 (17-7 SEC)
Streak: Lost 2
Team numbers
Entering last week
Games: 47
Batting avg: .334
On-base pct: .453
Slugging pct: .637
Home runs: 90
Triples: 7
Doubles: 78
Stolen bases: 53
Caught stealing: 13
ERA: 2.63
SO/IP: 274/301
Fielding pct: .978
Errors: 28
Unearned runs allowed: 20
Entering this week
Games: 50
Batting avg: .331
On-base pct: .451
Slugging pct: .627
Home runs: 95
Triples: 7
Doubles: 82
Stolen bases: 55
Caught stealing: 14
ERA: 2.80
SO/IP: 287/322
Fielding pct: .978
Errors: 30
Unearned runs allowed: 36
Individual leaders
Batting average: Kasidi Pickering .418, Ella Parker .416
On-base pct: Kasidi Pickering .565, Ella Parker .531
Slugging pct: Kasidi Pickering .843, Gabbie Garcia .754
RBIs: Gabbie Garcia 47, Nelly McEnroe-Marinas 45, Kasidi Pickering 45
Home runs: Gabbie Garcia 15, Nelly McEnroe-Marinas 14, Kasidi Pickering 14
Triples: Sydney Barker 2, Kasidi Pickering 1, Nelly McEnroe-Marinas 1, Gabbie Garcia 1, Dayton Abigale 1, Ailana Agbayani 1
Doubles: Ella Parker 15, Nelly McEnroe-Marinas 14
Hits: Ella Parker 57, Kasidi Pickering 56
Runs: Nelly McEnroe-Marinas 55, Kasidi Pickering 50
Stolen bases: Abigale Dayton 12, Ailana Agbayani 11
ERA: Sam Landry 2.10, Isabella Smith 2.96
Wins: Sam Landry 18-4, Isabella Smith 9-1, Kierston Deal 9-2
Innings pitched: Sam Landry 143 2/3, Kierston Deal 67 1/3
Strikeouts: Sam Landry 147, Isabella Smith 44
Inside the numbers
• Landry loses control: Sam Landry has given up runs this season. But what she hasn’t done is what she did last weekend, allowing 13 Florida baserunners without benefit of a hit or error. That is, over two appearances and 14 1/3 innings pitched, Landry walked 11 Gators and hit two others. That can’t continue if she expects to be successful this postseason.
• Lowry shows up: Audrey Lowry had endured a couple of the worst appearances any Sooner pitcher’s endured recently. In her previous three outings prior to visiting Gainesville, she’d allowed 11 hits and 10 earned runs over 3 1/3 innings. But over two appearances totaling 2 1/3 innings against Florida, she allowed three hits, yet no runs, nor did she walk anybody
• Conference numbers: You can see the Sooners’ team stats above. Here’s a few numbers just from the conference schedule. Against SEC foes, OU slashed .278/.392/.536. Only Kasidi Pickering hit .400 (on the nose). Sam Landry’s earned run average was 2.33 and OU’s was 3.65 as a team. Kierston Deal’s was 4.49 and Isabella Smith’s 6.89.
Notes of note
Pitching heads south
What happened against Florida from the Sooner circle retroactively justifies coach Patty Gasso’s decision to pull Isabella Smith against Texas the previous weekend despite Smith having allowed a single hit into the fourth inning.
Indeed, at no point this season has Gasso been able to trust more than one arm and given Sam Landry’s struggles against the Gators, particularly in the Saturday game, the new number may be zero.
In addition to all the walks Landry allowed, she also gave up seven hits, six runs and four earned runs to go with six free passes.
Additionally, both Kierston Deal and Smith, who’d thrown well against Texas, could not handle success against the Gators, with Deal allowing five earned runs over 1 2/3 innings and Smith four over 2 2/3. Deal also walked four batters.
The last time …
The last time an Oklahoma softball team lost seven games in a conference season was way back in 2004, when the Big 12 consisted of just 10 programs and league squads met one another just twice each season.
So, in a campaign the Sooners went 45-22-1, they were just 11-7 in the Big 12, good for fifth in the conference standings. Even then, they reached the College World Series for a fifth straight season behind the pitching of Kami Keiter, who’s earned run average that year was 1.22.
Parker still hammering
Ella Parker continued her conference turnaround at Gainesville.
Fourteen games into the conference season, Parker was 2 for 36 against SEC foes. Yet, over her final 10 games against league opponents, she hit a smoking hot .545, including four home runs, even coming in consecutive games: the last two against Texas and first two against Florida.
In so doing, Parker raised her season batting average to a healthy .416, making her one of only two Sooners hitting better than .400, the other being Kasidi Pickering at .418. She rebounded to hit .290 against the conference after being stuck at .056 after those previously mentioned 14 games.