Clean sweep: Oklahoma dominates Texas again
It seems Texas is just like everyone else on Oklahoma’s schedule. The Sooners still haven’t faced any competition.
No. 1-ranked OU pounded No. 7 Texas 9-0 on Sunday to complete a clean sweep of the Longhorns with three run-run victories.
The Sooners beat Texas 11-1 in Game One and 10-2 in Game Two and has now outscored the Horns by a combined 130-34 in 21 consecutive victories over their Red River Rival.
Motivated by a shockingly lower power rating and by questions from outside the program about how tested they are, the Sooners simply flexed on the college softball world this weekend.
“Yeah,” said coach Patty Gasso, “I think that riled us up a little bit.”
“Fired up is a good word to say,” said senior Lynnsie Elam, “because we were ready to show that we are tested — and if they don't think we're tested, then we'll show them that we are.”
OU improved to 33-0, while Texas dropped to 31-6.
Oklahoma has now won 52 consecutive Big 12 regular season games, with its last loss coming against Baylor on April 23, 2017. The streak is the longest in program history.
Clutch early pitching by Nicole May and four home runs propelled the Sooners to another easy victory.
May got into and out of big trouble in the second and the third inning, but she got out of both in dramatic fashion, and her teammates backed her up with three runs in the second and four in the third.
Gasso said she was glad to see her talented freshman pitch well in a key Big 12 series and liked how she responded to adversity.
“I kind of liked that she got in those situations,” Gasso said.
After OU went quietly in the first inning, Texas threatened in the second by loading the bases with no out on two singles and a walk. But May got a popup for the first out, then struck out both Alyssa Washington and Brianna Cantu swinging to end the threat.
Oklahoma got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the second when Taylon Snow’s sacrifice fly scored Jayda Coleman for a 1-0 lead. Jana Johns then followed with a massive two-run home run to straightaway center that put the Sooners up 3-0.
Texas loaded the bases again in the third inning against May with one out, but May struck out Colleen Sullivan and got Courtney Day to fly out to center field for the third out.
Coleman’s three-run home run in the third stretched the lead to 6-0. Jocelyn Alo ripped a one-out single through the left side, and Kinzie Hansen drew a walk. After Grace Lyons flied out, Texas coaches called a meeting in the circle, and Coleman answered with a first-pitch blast over the wall in center field.
“It just seems like there’s new heroes every day,” Gasso said. “ … Every day, they just impress me more.”
In both innings, Sooner hitters were fired up after the way May closed down her end. Coleman’s homer was the Sooners’ 100th of the season, and Elam immediately followed by hitting No. 101 out of the stadium to left field.
“Any time our pitchers do something like that we come in the dugout really hot and ready to go,” Elam said. “It's so cool I think the dynamic we have with that. Just, we fight for runs for them and they fight to keep runs off the board. … We definitely came in with some fire in our bellies, ready to get on the board for her and show her that we had her back.”
“We knew had a freshman pitcher on the mound and we needed to have her back,” said Coleman, “because she went in there, she shut it down. So I think going back in and we're like, ‘We got to get this for her. She's shut it down for us, she's getting outs for us, so like, we got to do this.’”
Texas pitcher Shea O’Leary, who took the loss in Friday’s game when she lasted just one inning and gave up five runs, went 2 2/3 innings this time and gave up seven runs on five hits. O’Leary came into the series with a 9-0 record and a 1.34 earned run average (she had won 15 consecutive decisions), but went 0-2 and allowed 12 runs in her two starts against OU.
“I was super excited just to play Texas,” said Coleman, a Texas native. “I’ve been dreaming of it since I was in eighth grade, since I've committed here, and it was a great feeling. I mean no other way I'd rather go. So it was awesome. I loved it.”
In the fourth, Tiare Jennings hit her 20th home run of the season with a two-run shot to left off Molly Jacobsen.
OU now travels to Georgia on Tuesday to take on the Bulldogs for a doubleheader in Athens, a venture that Gasso thinks should help the team’s RPI as the team continues polishing things up for a postseason run.
“I thought we showed well,” Gasso said. “We’re on television, it showed well on television, the right people hopefully got to see that. But I'm just, I really am concerned about the unknown (in selecting the postseason seeds), of what are you going to choose people by … who's going to host, who's not, who's going with who.
“So I’m doing everything I’m my power to help that cause.”