Week 4 Sooner Softball Report: It's a whole new ballgame as conference play arrives
The Sooners enter Southeastern Conference play against South Carolina Friday at Love’s Field and it can’t come soon enough because it’s getting ridiculous.
Now 19-0 on the season, 12 of Oklahoma’s victories have come in fewer than seven innings and 11 have come in the minimum five. The Sooners have also been taken to extra innings three times, by San Diego State, Long Beach State and Bowling Green, which is certainly interesting, and still the true and repeated tests conference play will bring should be absolutely welcome.
The ESPN.com/USA Softball poll in which OU matriculated back to No. 1 last week, also ranked Texas No. 2, Florida No. 3, Texas A&M No. 5, LSU No. 6, Tennessee No. 7, Georgia No. 11, Arkansas No. 12, Auburn No. 19, South Carolina No. 21, Alabama No. 22 and if the poll were to be carried out to every team receiving votes, Ole Miss No. 27, Kentucky No. 29 and Missouri No. 30.
That’s every single SEC team.
Welcoming South Carolina (19-0) to Norman, the Sooners appear to have edges over the Gamecocks, and still those margins are small.
The Sooners are slashing .352/.488/.684 and the Gamecocks are slashing .369/.487/.603, meaning both teams get on base about as much as the other, though OU claims a power advantage, counting 75 extra base hits, 39 of them home runs to South Carolina’s 74 and 17 home runs.
OU brings a 1.26 earned run average while South Carolina comes in at 2.08, yet the real difference may be smaller given the Gamecocks willingness to throw Jori Heard for big innings, 50 2/3 so far, whose ERA is a flashy 0.97.
OU will also be facing a former Sooner it couldn’t have known would breaking out so big in new environs.
Quincee Lilio appeared in 88 games over two seasons for OU, getting 71 at bats, hitting .211, driving in 14 and hitting one home run.
Having moved from Norman to Columbia, she’s now one of the nation’s leading hitters, starting all 19 games, hitting .569 from the leadoff spot, driving in 18, scoring 22 runs, lashing seven doubles and two triples.
“I was looking for more playing time and more opportunities to be on the field,” Lilio told Gamecocksonline.com.
She found what she was looking for.
The Schedule
Last week
— def. Marshall 9-1 (5 innings)
— def. Kansas 9-1 (6 innings)
— def. Kansas 8-0 (5 innings)
— def. Marshall 11-0 (5 innings)
— def. Kansas City 17-1 (5 innings)
This week
— vs. South Carolina, 6:30 p.m. Friday
— vs. South Carolina, 2 p.m. Saturday
— vs. South Carolina, 1:30 p.m. Sunday
Record: 19-0
Streak: Won 19
Team numbers
Entering last week
Games: 14
Batting avg: .323
On-base pct: .468
Slugging pct: .616
Home runs: 24
Triples: 3
Doubles: 27
Stolen bases: 24
Caught stealing: 3
ERA: 1.38
SO/IP: 113/91
Fielding pct: .984
Errors: 6
Unearned runs allowed: 4
Entering this week
Games: 19
Batting avg: .352
On-base pct: .488
Slugging pct: .684
Home runs: 39
Triples: 3
Doubles: 33
Stolen bases: 36
Caught stealing: 4
ERA: 1.26
SO/IP: 134/117
Fielding pct: .987
Errors: 6
Unearned runs allowed: 4
Individual leaders
Batting average: Ella Parker .574 (Cydney Sanders .405)
On-base pct: Ella Parker .653 (Cydney Sanders .583)
Slugging pct: Ella Parker 1.019 (Sydney Barker .958)
RBIs: Kasidi Pickering 27 (Ella Parker 22)
Home runs: Kasidi Pickering 7 (Cydney Sanders 5, Tia Milloy 5, Isabela Emerling 5)
Triples: Sydney Barker 2 (Kasidi Pickering 1)
Doubles: Ella Parker 12 (Nelly McEnroe-Marinas 6)
Hits: Ella Parker 31 (Nelly McEnroe-Marinas 20)
Runs: Ella Parker 25 (Abigale Dayton 23)
Stolen bases: Abigale Dayton 10 (Ailana Agbayani 8)
ERA: Isabella Smith 0.27 (Kierston Deal 0.76)
Wins: Isabella Smith 5-0, Sam Landry 5-0
Innings pitched: Sam Landry 33 1/3 (Kierston Deal 27 2/3)
Strikeouts: Sam Landry 54 (Isabella Smith 26)
Inside the numbers
• Pickering running hot: Kasidi Pickering’s enjoying a heck of a season and just enjoyed a heck of a week. On the year, she’s slashing .375/.544/.917, good for third on the team in all three categories. This past week, she raised her home run count from four to a team-high seven, and in one of the games she did not go deep, she went 2 for 4 with four RBIs, a sacrifice fly and a stolen base.
• Big days for Emerling: Isabela Emerling’s only hitting .227 but it’s not like she doesn’t carry a big bat. Sunday, against Kansas City, she finished 3 for 3 with a home run and, count them, seven RBIs. She also went deep and knocked in two against Kansas on Saturday. She has five home runs on the season and is slugging a healthy .591.
• A running team: OU added 12 more stolen bases over the weekend to reach 36 in 19 games. In both 2000 (74 games) and 2017 (70 games) OU stole a school record 112 bases. The Sooners are on pace to steal more than 112 this season.
Notes of note
Pitching gets interesting
It’s always fun to try guessing how coach Patty Gasso will use her pitching staff and it’s more fun now given conference play is arriving and nobody’s scheduled to play two games in one day the rest of the season.
So, will Gasso lean the hardest on Sam Landry, who leads the Sooners in innings (33 1/3) and strikeouts (54) or on those with the most sparkling earned run averages: Isabella Smith (0.27 over 25 2/3 innings) and Kierston Deal (0.76 over 27 2/3)? Is the fact Smith started three of OU’s five games over last weekend an indicator she’s moved to the top spot?
Given the way she’s worked her staffs in previous seasons it’s likely Gasso intends to start three different starting pitchers against the Gamecocks. Yet, even if that’s true, will she stick with that philosophy in such a rugged conference? Could she possibly split the vast majority of innings between just two pitchers as conference play continues.
We’ll see.
How good is this conference?
The rankings are one way to show just how difficult navigating conference play will be for each SEC team. Still, for Sooner fans, a look at conference team stats may be a better tool.
OU’s .352 team batting average, for instance, ranks eighth of 14 conference teams, it’s on-base percentage of .488 ranks third, it’s slugging percentage of .684 also ranks third and it’s 36 stolen bases only ranks fifth.
In the circle, OU’s 1.26 earned run average ranks second, but it’s a distant second to Tennessee’s 0.77 and the Volunteers can slug, too, carrying a slash line of .377/.482/.656.
Just looking at the numbers, the class of the conference appears to be Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Florida. The order, though, is not clear and South Carolina and LSU appear to be very close, too.
It’s going to be a wild ride.
Until next time …