Oklahoma Ready to Open Home Slate After Explosive Mary Nutter Classic Showing
After criss-crossing the country for three weeks, Oklahoma is finally ready to open its home slate.
The No. 1-ranked Sooners will embark on their 25th season at Marta Hynes Field, hosing a pair of games against the UIC Flames and the No. 17 Kentucky Wildcats.
OU enters the weekend hot, fresh off a 14-0 victory over the UCLA Bruins.
But the Sooner bats were excellent for the entirety of last weekend’s Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic, not just the contest against UCLA, outscoring opponents 50-4.
As a team, Oklahoma ranks third nationally with a .382 batting average and fourth with a team ERA of 1.12.
Patty Gasso’s Sooners are the only program to rank in the top five in both categories, and last week the OU bats really got going. Two specific plate appearances sparked the team, Gasso said, as the entire lineup did a much better job of targeting specific pitches last weekend.
“Rylie Boone was up with two strikes and just battling and battling,” Gasso said on Wednesday. “Got a base hit, maybe got a double out of it, I’m not quite sure. She fought hard. And then Sophia Nugent had the same type of situation. Two strikes, battle, battle, and hits that absolute missile bomb she hit. Those two at-bats changed our weekend. We were getting stuck with changeups.
“We were freezing with two strikes on changeups. They were doing a good job with their rhythm and hitting with two strikes. It just got infectious and went throughout our lineup.”
Seven different Sooners are now hitting .400 or better, and five different OU batters have totaled 10 or more RBIs.
Kentucky has the best pitching staff Oklahoma will see this weekend, but the Wildcats rank No. 45 in the country, and there will be plenty of opportunities to plate runs all weekend.
The Wildcat batters will be a test for Oklahoma’s pitching staff.
Kentucky saw Jordy Bahl last year in OU’s 9-1 win over the Wildcats in Lexington, but the visitors haven’t gotten a look in-person at either Nicole May or Alex Storako.
May has yet to give up a run this year, striking out 35 batters and issuing only seven walks across 21 innings pitched.
Storako will roll into the weekend feeling confident as well, as the super senior just bottled up the UCLA offense for Oklahoma last Sunday.
The defense behind OU’s pitching staff has been stellar as well, and Gasso is excited to see how her infield performs playing on a familiar surface at Marita Hynes Field.
“One thing that excites me more than anything is we have a .990 fielding average,” said Gasso, “which is almost ridiculous and a lot of balls are put in play so I'm really excited about the defense and their pride in what they're doing. I would tell you that you had to be very good on defense on those fields that we played on, because they were hard.
“Balls were playing fast but there were a lot of awkward hops. Guys stood behind them. They did a good job. They didn't step away from them.”
The field isn’t the only reason Gasso is happy to be home. Opening the season with three straight road weekends was hectic, and the team is looking forward to seeing friendly faces in a familiar setting.
“We’ve been on the road for three weeks, and it’s (like), ‘Keep your suitcase out.’ Which is awful,” Gasso said. “I tell these guys, ‘Go home and put your suitcase away. Don’t look at it.’ But I know they don’t. I think they just leave everything still in it until they throw it in the washer and put it back in. So it’s nice to put away our suitcase. Our home crowd follows us. So when we walk in, wherever we go, even at Baylor, you felt a big contingency of Sooner fans.
“So it wasn’t like we were on the ropes in a hostile environment anywhere that we’ve been thus far. But just to sleep in your bed, have familiar faces here and just your home crowd, your music is important, hitting out on our field instead of hitting in pop-up cages, it’s just everything about it is exciting. Families all come in. So I know we’re all looking forward to it.”
The OU Tournament will start with a contest against UIC on Friday at 3 p.m., and the Sooners will immediately follow that with their first matchup of the weekend against Kentucky at 5:30 p.m.
All of Oklahoma’s contests this weekend will be broadcast on ESPN+.
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