WEEK 14 SOONER SOFTBALL REPORT: Can one win make all the difference?
The Skinny
If you ask me, it began in the bottom of the fourth inning, Kasidi Pickering and Rylie Boone the co-conspirators. What “it” will become remains a mystery, but here are a few possibilities.
• The comeback to salvage one game from the Bedlam series.
• The Sooners finally creating space to take a breath during this trying season.
• The Sooners ditching the emotional tonnage they’ve been carrying around.
• All of the above, sparking a run to a fourth straight national championship.
Probably, options remain between the third and fourth items on the list. Nonetheless, once Oklahoma put the wraps on its 8-2 Sunday evening victory over its Bedlam rival Pokes, it felt like more than a victory, not like the Sooners salvaged something, but found something instead.
The fact Pickering started it, connecting on her seventh home run of the season to put OU on top 2-0, bringing home Alynah Torres, who’d singled in front of her, made sense. If anybody in coach Patty Gasso’s starting lineup should have felt unaffected by the shifting and quick sand beneath the Sooners’ feet, it’s Pickering, a true freshman for whom the fear of team failure, having only recently arrived, should not be a thing.
Then, after Kinzie Hansen walked, it was Boone’s turn.
She connected with an infield single off the glove of Oklahoma State third baseman Tallen Edwards and by the time she realized she was safe at first, rather than run through the bag only a few steps, she dang near ran all the way to the warning track, smiling and cheering and maybe even dancing, exuding a spirit she and her teammates had seemingly not felt in a long time.
Unfortunately, no more runs crossed.
Fortunately, by the time the lineup had turned over again, after Hansen began the Sooner half of the sixth grounding out to shortstop — and after OSU had tied the game in the top of the frame — Boone was back at the plate, singling up the middle to begin the rally that may have saved the Sooner season.
Cydney Sanders got a pop up to drop safely, Jayda Coleman lashed a single to left field, Ella Parker homered to make it 5-2 and, though it took a review to make it official, Tiare Jennings homered, too, perhaps finally ending a slump for the ages that had seen her hit about .100 over her previous 30 or so at bats.
Weekend to weekend, we tend to look at these conference series as one thing rather than three things, as singular units rather than 21 innings (or less), broken into three games, each with their own life and consequences. Usually, that’s a fine way of looking at it, but maybe not this time.
Indeed, by winning two of three, the Cowgirls made the case to themselves they really can compete with the very best teams in the nation, that they need not cower to their Bedlam rival ever again, that somebody’s got to win a national championship and it might as well be them.
Yet, by winning only the last one, the way they won the last one, with the emotion with which they won the last one, the Sooners may have accomplished as much or more as they head into their final Big 12 tournament, their first game scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Thursday against Kansas or Houston.
Because the way they were going, they were going nowhere.
They weren’t putting up the numbers to be a postseason force and the looks on their faces and the body language they exuded resembled a team very much at the end of something. Now, or so it appears, the lightness has returned.
No, it doesn’t mean they can regain all their magic.
But it means they might.
It’s a (new) start.
The Schedule
Last week
— lost to Oklahoma State 6-3
— lost to Oklahoma State 6-2
— def. Oklahoma State 8-2
Record: 46-6
Conference record: 22-5
Streak: Won 1
This week
Big 12 tournament
At Hall of Fame Stadium, Oklahoma City
Wednesday
Game 1: No. 7 Kansas vs. No. 10 Houston, 5 p.m. (ESPN+)
Game 2: No. 8 Texas Tech vs. No. 9 Iowa State, 7:30 p.m. (ESPN+)
Thursday
Game 3: No. 3 Oklahoma State vs. No. 6 BYU, 11 a.m. (ESPN+)
Game 4: No. 2 Oklahoma vs. Game 1 winner, 1:30 p.m. (ESPN+)
Game 5: No. 1 Texas vs. Game 2 winner, 5 p.m. (ESPN+)
Game 6: No. 4 Baylor vs. No. 5 UCF, 7:30 p.m. (ESPN+)
Friday
Game 7: Game 3 winner vs. Game 4 winner, 5 p.m. (ESPN+)
Game 8: Game 5 winner vs. Game 6 winner, 7:30 p.m. (ESPN+)
Saturday
Game 9: Game 7 winner vs. Game 8 winner, 6:30 p.m. (ESPN2)
Numbers
Entering last week
Games: 49
Batting average: .372
On-base percentage: .480
Slugging percentage: .673
Earned run average: 1.66
Strikeouts/innings pitched: 292/300
Opponent batting average: .184
Fielding percentage: .982
Errors: 23
Unearned runs allowed: 8
Entering this week
Games: 52
Batting average: .364
On-base percentage: .473
Slugging percentage: .656
Earned run average: 1.85
Strikeouts/innings pitched: 304/321
Opponent batting average: .191
Fielding percentage: .981
Errors: 26
Unearned runs allowed: 8
Leaders
Batting average: Kinzie Hansen .415 (Rylie Boone .413)
On-base percentage: Jayda Coleman .535 (Kasidi Pickering .510)
Slugging percentage: Alyssa Brito .843 (Tiare Jennings .808)
Runs batted in: Tiare Jennings 56 (Alyssa Brito 50)
Home runs: Tiare Jennings 19 (Alyssa Brito 16)
Triples: Alyssa Brito 4 (Rylie Boone 1, Kasidi Pickering 1, Avery Hodge 1)
Doubles: Tiare Jennings 12 (Ella Parker 11)
Hits: Alyssa Brito 61 (Rylie Boone 57, Tiare Jennings 57)
Runs scored: Jayda Coleman 57 (Alyssa Brito 53)
Stolen bases: Ella Parker 15 (Rylie Boone 7)
Earned run average: S.J. Guerin .70 ; 10 IP (Karlie Keeney 1.40; 55 IP)
Wins: Kelly Maxwell 16-2 (Nicole May 12-2)
Innings pitched: Kelly Maxwell 106 (Nicole May 69)
Strikeouts: Kelly Maxwell 110 (Nicole May 72)
Inside the numbers
• Gasso, Deal fail: It’s unclear what Patty Gasso was thinking vis-a-vis Kierston Deal over the weekend. The back-to-back Big 12 pitcher of the week on the strength of complete game victories over Tulsa, Houston and Central Florida, Gasso chose to use Deal out of the bullpen against Oklahoma State and the results were horrendous. Throwing just an inning total, spread out over two games, Deal allowed six hits and five earned runs, sending her earned run average skyward from 1.00 to 1.53 while her innings total moved only from 63 to 64. Gasso easily could have started Deal in either of the first two games of the series, rather than Kelly Maxwell (Thursday) and Nicole May (Friday), and turned to Maxwell, May or anybody else in relief roles. But she didn’t and must now roll forward hoping the sophomore pitcher’s confidence hasn’t been shattered.
• Keeney makes most of it: Because Gasso had to know she was going with May on Saturday, after Deal failed Friday — and because S.J. Guerin and Paytn Monticelli have apparently entered witness relocation; Guerin hasn’t pitched since April 12 and Monticelli since April 20 — she had nowhere to turn but to Karlie Keeney to finish the series opener, which she did with aplomb, throwing 2 1/3 scoreless and no-hit innings, stopping the bleeding and giving the Sooner bats a chance in the bottoms of the fifth, sixth and seven innings. With that, Keeney became the choice to throw the Sunday game and she was up to the task, tossing 6 2/3 innings, allowing four hits and four walks, but no runs. In fact, because Gasso, perhaps trying to get Deal’s confidence back, brought Deal out to pitch the sixth inning only for Deal to allow three hits and two runs while getting one out, Keeney returned to the circle to, essentially, earn the win a second time. Over the weekend, Keeney tossed nine shutout innings, lowering her earned run average from 1.71 to 1.40.
• Bad week for numbers: The Sooners’ propensity to build huge collective offensive numbers has been built on numerous big innings, yet OU enjoyed only one of those all of last weekend, netting six runs in Sunday’s bottom of the sixth, a frame that included four singles and two home runs. Thus, if you’re charting, the Sooners batting average fell from .372 to .364, it’s on-base percentage from .480 to .473 and it’s slugging percentage from .673 to .656. Or, in conference play, from .357 to .345, .482 to .469 and .665 to .636.
Of course, if OU’s now shaken off whatever’s been in its head since dropping two of three to Texas, or perhaps even before dropping two of three to Texas, those falling numbers will no longer matter.
Diamond Notes
What to do in the circle?
The way OU’s one big inning went against OSU, perhaps the Sooner bats will just continue coming back around. Yet, the way things went in the circle, Karlie Keeney aside, pitching appears dicier.
Against the Cowgirls, not only did Kelly Maxwell struggle in a starting role, allowing four hits, two walks and three runs over four innings, she was then shelled in relief the following day, allowing two hits, a walk, a hit batter and three runs in just an inning, sending her earned run average from 1.66 to 1.98.
Nicole May suffered her own struggles, allowing one run through five innings on Saturday, only to allow two more in the sixth without recording an out.
So what’s the plan entering the Big 12 tourney?
Last week it appeared Kierston Deal was OU’s best pitcher, yet Gasso did not giver her a start against the Cowgirls. Now Keeney has the hot hand, but will Gasso reward her with a tourney start? More, is there a pitcher Gasso views as her best hope to take on a heavy workload when it really matters come super regional weekend and, if that goes well, at the World Series? If there is, how does she get that pitcher going at or near her best by that time?
Her choices will be fascinating, as will her pitchers’ responses.
Where do they stand?
In the final regular season top 25 issued by Softball America, out Monday, here’s the top 10: 1. Texas (45-6); 2. Tennessee (40-9); 3. Oklahoma State (44-9); 4. Oklahoma (46-6); 5. Duke (44-6); 6. UCLA (34-10); 7. Stanford (42-12); 8. Missouri (40-14); 9. Florida (43-12); 10. Texas A&M (39-12).
The Sooners remain No. 2, to Texas, in the official NCAA RPI. The rest of the top 10 includes No. 3 LSU, No. 4 Duke, No. 5 Tennessee, No. 6 Stanford, No. 7 Georgia, No. 8 Oklahoma State, No. 9 Missouri, No. 10 UCLA.
History lesson
The Sooners will be looking for their ninth Big 12 tournament crown this weekend after missing out on what would have been their 16th regular season championship. There was no Big 12 tournament from 2011 to 2016 and the 2019 tourney was rained out. The very first Big 12 championship in any sport came on the softball diamond in 1996 … every other sport had to wait for the next academic year. The Sooners won that regular season and tourney crown, pulling the same double in 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2023. This season marks the first Big 12 regular season crown the Sooners did not win since 2011, when Missouri prevailed.
Until next time …