Oklahoma Prepared to Give 'Everything' in Saturday Elimination Game at Love's Field

NORMAN — Oklahoma can’t afford to feel sorry for itself.

The Sooners have a quick turnaround from Friday’s 11-9 loss to Mississippi State to get back on track and avoid elimination on Saturday.

OU, the 3-seed in the NCAA Tournament, will battle the Bulldogs at Love’s Field on Saturday at noon (ESPN) to try and force a Game 3 in the Norman Super Regional.

If Oklahoma is unable to shake off Friday’s shocking loss, it will fail to reach the Women’s College World Series for the first time since 2015.

How to Watch Game 2 of the Norman Super Regional

When: Saturday, May 23
Where: Love's Field
Time: 12 p.m.
Channel: ESPN

“In life, things don't go well, what are you going to do about it? You either surrender or you step up and you say, 'I'm going to make this right.' And so we're going to woman up and give the Sooner fans and our program everything we have,” OU coach Patty Gasso said on Friday.

The Sooners allowed the most hits ever for the program in a Super Regional contest (15) and tied the most errors made in a Super Regional game (four), two trends they hope will get corrected overnight.

Mississippi State hadn’t scored more than five runs in a game since April 19, which made the Bulldogs’ 11-run outburst that much more shocking.

Gasso is confident her defense and pitching staff will be able to correct Friday’s mistakes.

“I truly just think it was a bad day,” Gasso said. “… You gotta give credit, absolutely, to Mississippi State. They just kept pushing and pushing us and pushing us.”

The Sooners did find success offensively, however.

OU chased Alyssa Faircloth out of the game after 2 1/3 innings, marking her shortest start of the season. The Sooners also got to see Peja Goold, who is likely to start Saturday’s contest for the Bulldogs, throw 17 pitches after Kendall Wells blasted a monster home run off the senior right-hander.

“I thought we did a very good job against their pitching staff, so we got to see all the arms, so there is that, that we're ready for,” Gasso said.

Oklahoma (51-9) hasn’t dropped two games in the same weekend all season.

The Sooners won all four SEC series in which they dropped a contest.

Texas A&M took the series-opener against OU, but Gasso’s squad rallied to notch victories in each of the final two games that weekend, and Oklahoma was able to bounce back from Saturday splits with LSU and Arkansas to win both of those series.

Freshman catcher Kendall Wells believes her team has what it takes to rally on Saturday and Sunday and make it back to the WCWS.

“We're at the point of the season where everybody's fighting hard to win every game,” she said. “So just trusting in ourselves, trusting in the work we've done, our preparation.

“We feel very prepared for their pitching, and we got to see all of them today, so just coming out tomorrow and trusting our game, being who we are and doing our job.”

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