Kai Minor Gets the Party Started and Oklahoma is Heading Back to Super Regionals

NORMAN — Kai Minor continued her hot streak, Audrey Lowry was plenty efficient and Oklahoma is heading back to the Super Regionals for the 16th consecutive season.

The third-seeded Sooners beat Michigan 8-1 on Sunday at Love's Field to finish off their regional sweep.

Minor went 2 for 5 with three runs scored, and blasted her 11th home run of the season.

Oklahoma has won 19 consecutive regional games and 31 consecutive in the regional and super regional rounds.

The Sooners (51-8) will play either Mississippi State or Saint Mary's in a best-of-three Super Regional beginning either Thursday or Friday at Love's Field.

Oklahoma scored three in the first, getting off to a quick start as Minor led off the game with a double, Ella Parker drew a walk and then Gabbie Garcia delivered an RBI single to left center.

The leadoff walk was the third in four games for the Sooners' freshman centerfielder.

With the bases loaded and two outs, Isabela Emerling drove in two more runs with a single down the left field line.

Emerling drove in five runs in the regional.

Those three first-inning runs were plenty for Lowry, who had plenty of juice after throwing just two innings in Friday's 11-0 win over Binghamton.

Lowry worked 4 2/3, allowing just three hits and strikeing out three with no walks before giving way to Kierston Deal.

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The Sooners made it 4-0 in the second on Garcia's sacrifice fly. Sydney Barker drew a leadoff walk, Minor grounded into a fielder's choice and Parker's single set up the sacrifice fly.

After Erin Hoehn got the Wolverines on the board with a solo home run in the second, and Maddie Erickson came through with a two-out single, Kiley Carr followed with a bloop into short right center.

Second baseman Ailana Agbayani gave chase, but couldn't quite get to it. Parker, races over, though, and hauled in the ball with a diving catch.

Minor's one-out home run in the fourth made it 5-1 Sooners.

During Minor's eight-game hitting streak, she's hitting 14 for 31 with six doubles and has home runs in four of her last five games.

The Sooners tacked on two more in the fifth, with Agbayani driving in a run on a double, then Parker drawing a bases-loaded walk to make it 7-1.

After Lowry (22-3) retired the first two batters of the fifth, Sooners pitching coach Jennifer Rocha went to the circle to bring in Deal, who hadn't pitched since April 26 against Georgia.

Deal threw a scoreless inning before giving way to Sydney Berzon with two outs in the sixth.

Deal got a standing ovation as she left the field, and her teammates greeted her outside the dugout in what could've been her final Love's Field appearance.

Agbayani blasted a 253-foot home run to right in the seventh for her seventh home run of the season.

Garcia, Emerling and Agbayani had two hits each.

Berzon retired the side in order in the seventh to end the game.

Oklahoma outscored its opponents 28-1 during the three-game sweep through the regional.

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