Oklahoma Looking to Settle in Offensively at the Getterman Classic
Last weekend, Oklahoma dusted off the cobwebs.
OU went 5-0 at the Mark Campbell Invitational, opening up its National Championship defense with a trio of ranked wins as well as a 1-0 nail-biter with a plucky Liberty squad.
The top-ranked Sooners outscored their competition 29-5, notching run rule victories against No. 19 Stanford and San Jose State, but the offense looked far from fluid.
“We had a lot of nerves,” OU coach Patty Gasso said during her weekly press conference on Wednesday. “I don't know if it was just newcomers. It almost felt like throughout the lineup. I don't know if it was expectations.”
Before the season, Gasso acknowledged there would be no replacing the game’s greatest hitter, Jocelyn Alo, in the lineup this year.
But the additions to the roster via the transfer portal added plenty of power, giving Gasso the tools to build a balanced lineup in 2023.
In the big moments on opening weekend, the group simply struggled to produce.
Oklahoma combined to hit 4-of-19 with runners in scoring position on Day 1 against Duke and Liberty.
That mark improved to 5-of-9 in OU’s 10-1 romp over Stanford, but the Sooners hit 2-of-5 with runners in scoring position against Washington as the offense struggled to string together hits in a 5-4 victory over the Huskies.
Gasso said the team worked through the early-season jitters as the weekend unfolded, but there was still plenty of work to be done this week at practice to ensure OU hitters step into the box with the right approach.
“When you're nervous, your head isn't set right,” Gasso said. “You swing at things out of the zone. You are swinging at bad two-strike pitches. I thought nerves definitely were there. The first two games on Thursday, we were not ourselves. We were not. And we were lucky to get out of there with two wins.
“The response on Friday (against Stanford) was fantastic. I thought they played really well. The response on Saturday (against Washington) was fantastic, although our pitchers were tight. Nine walks, two hit batters and two errors and we still beat Washington; that's a sign of a good team. We didn't play clean.”
Even the rigors of multiple competitive scrimmages this fall didn’t fully prepare some of the new faces for the moment once the season got rolling this past weekend.
“Some of these guys looked like they were close to hyperventilating at times before going to the plate,” Gasso said. “So it was just the demeanor. It's just getting them to exhale. We got to breathe…. We got to slow things down. We got to not make the game too big.
“I think they know how good our team is. And I think they try hard because they want to stay in their positions.”
This weekend will provide opportunity for the offense to settle in.
Oklahoma will play four opponents at the Getterman Classic in Waco, starting with Longwood on Friday before taking on Stephen F. Austin and Army on Saturday. Then OU will finish the trip off with what is technically a non-conference battle against familiar foes in the Baylor Bears.
All four opponents are unranked, though Longwood did shock the softball world with a 5-4 victory over No. 6-ranked Florida State this past Saturday.
One Sooner who appeared comfortable throughout opening weekend was Texas A&M transfer Haley Lee.
Starting all five contests, Lee is tied with star shortstop Grace Lyons atop the team with a .462 batting average.
Now one of a bevy of great hitters in the lineup instead of the sole centerpiece of the offense in College Station, Lee thrived with how teams tried to attack her at the plate.
“I would say a lot of teams throw hard early,” Lee said on Wednesday. “They try to get aggressive more in the zone. So I think just being in attack mode and just find that strike that I’m looking for is going to be important to me rather than just taking a pitch and then not getting that pitch again.”
With Lee riding high from a productive opening weekend, the entire OU lineup will get its first chance to improve against Longwood on Friday at 12:30 p.m.
“Our expectations and our standards are quite high,” Gasso said. “And they know that.
“They know they were lucky to walk out of there with five wins. This weekend, we're looking forward to getting things straightened out.”
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