Oklahoma's Offense Hoping for More Sustained Success After Moving Past 'This Georgia Thing'

NORMAN — Patty Gasso will certainly take the four home runs her team hit during Oklahoma’s 11-0 win over Binghamton in the Norman Regional opener Friday at Love’s Field.

But the Sooners coach was more heartened by the consistent, solid at-bats produced by the offense.

After Oklahoma’s bats went quiet from the second batter of the second inning on during last week’s 10-5 loss to Georgia in the SEC Tournament, Gasso really honed in on approach and situational offense in the lead-up to the regional.

“It just a great way to get started,” Gasso said after the Sooners’ 12-hit, four-walk performance against the Bearcats. “We’ve been waiting. This Georgia thing has been on us and you just move on and we got rid of it at practice. We really worked hard. We really worked efficient, I thought, at practice so to see us score the way we did and just set a tone is really, really important. And they stepped up at the right time.”

Gasso is hoping for more of the same Saturday when No. 3 seed OU takes on Kansas at 2 p.m. at Love’s Field.

The Sooners’ offense showed its readiness from the beginning.

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Kai Minor led off the first with a double, then came around to score two batters later on Gabbie Garcia’s RBI single. Two batters after that, Isabela Emerling drove home another run with a line-out sacrifice fly to left.

In the third, the Sooners strung more hits together with three consecutive singles from Kasidi Pickering, Abby Dayton and Ailana Agbayani to score two more runs.

“I think the most encouraging thing was definitely just being able to pass the bat, focusing on one pitch at a time,” Agbayani, who went 2 for 2, said. “Even though if anyone got behind in the count, you wouldn’t even know by their body language. You could tell that everyone was focused every single pitch and just being present.”

That was a big difference from the loss to Georgia, after which Gasso critiqued her team’s body language as the Bulldogs rallied from an early 5-0 deficit to score 10 consecutive runs and stun the Sooners.

While Kansas entered the regional with a 3.76 ERA, 84th nationally, the Jayhawks held Michigan scoreless with just six hits — all singles — in their 1-0, eight-inning win Friday to advance to the matchup with Oklahoma.

Saturday’s game will keep alive the streak of the Sooners and Jayhawks meeting every season since 1979, outside of the COVID-shortened 2020 season.

The only series with a longer streak for OU is Bedlam.

The Sooners have won 25 consecutive games against the Jayhawks, including a pair of run-rule decisions last season at Love’s Field.

Kansas’ last win over Oklahoma came in 2016.

Jayhawks’ freshman Lila Partridge threw eight shutout innings, walking just one with three strikeouts, in the win over the Wolverines.

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