Oklahoma Softball: Sooners Start Weekend With Run Rule Victory Over UAB

NORMAN — The No. 1-ranked Sooners kept their perfect season rolling on Friday night.

Oklahoma opened its two-game set against the UAB Blazers with an 11-1 run-rule victory in five innings at Marita Hynes Field.

The win was the 26th via run rule for OU (31-0), and dropped UAB to 20-12.

Though the Sooners rolled to another victory, they didn’t put in the clean performance Patty Gasso said she wanted out of the team after their mid-week victory over the Wichita State Shockers.

Oklahoma committed a pair of fielding errors, though the Sooners did hit 4-of-6 with runners in scoring position, an improvement from the win over the Shockers.

“I thought we did a good job with runners in scoring position at times,” Gasso said after the game. “… We just spent a little too much time learning — took too long to learn what we needed to adjust. Once we figured out that then we started to see things open up for us.”

The Sooners started things off on the front foot, however.

Jayda Coleman opened the scoring in the bottom of the second inning.

Capitalizing on a leadoff walk from Taylon Snow, Coleman turned on the second pitch she saw, blasting a two-run home run over the batter’s eye in center field to put the Sooners up 2-0.

“I thought we all agreed we had a little bit of a slow start,” Gasso said. “But a lot of that was due to their pitcher throwing and doing a really good job of keeping us off balance.

“We were being a little over aggressive and chasing some pitches. A little uncharacteristic of us, but (Jocelyn Alo) kind of set the tone for this team kind of talked a little bit about how we should adjust.”

Alo’s adjustments proved to be the difference, as the Sooners scored in every inning after getting shut out in the first.

But the Blazers fired back in the next frame.

Tyler Armistead led off the third inning with a double that just tucked into fair play up the third-base line.

She was able to to advance to third on a throwing error from Sooner third baseman Jana Johns, as Johns’ throw across the diamond pulled Snow off the bag into a collision with the Blazer baserunner.

Snow had to exit the game and was taken to the locker room after spending a brief moment on the ground getting examined by OU’s athletic trainer, though Gasso said after the game a concussion wasn’t a concern.

“It was more of a really sore neck,” Gasso said. “But no concussions or anything like that — no anything out of joint or anything like that.”

The throwing error brought up UAB’s Lilly Crowe up to the plate with just one out, and she dribbled a ball up the middle into a fielder’s choice. The Sooners got the out at second, but were unable to turn the double play, which brought Armistead across home plate to cut the lead to 2-1.

Bahl limited the damage to just one run, and Alo extended the advantage to two runs once again in the bottom of the third.

Alo led off with a solo home run, launching her 104th career bomb.

The Hawaiian slugger scored another run in the bottom of the fourth inning.

Tiare Jennings loaded the bases for Alo with a two-out single, and UAB pitcher Sarah Cespedes plunked Alo on on her full-count offering.

Oklahoma went up 5-1 after Grace Lyons was handed a free base due to catcher interference in the ensuing at-bat.

Alo said she didn’t need to give a rah-rah speech or anything to help get the offense going, but she just helped her team see the ball a little cleaner.

“I was just telling them the adjustments we needed to make as a unit,” Alo said. “… (We started with) just ground ball after ground ball and can’t keep falling into what their defense was trying to get.

“… Eventually we did start hitting the ball in the air and runners kept getting on.”

In the bottom of the fifth, the Sooners took advantage of a pair of free bases.

Coleman was hit by a pitch to hand OU its first base runner of the inning, and after Kinzie Hansen reached on an error, Johns drew a walk to load the bases.

Rylie Boone took advantage of the situation, singling through the left side to plate Coleman and Hansen and push the lead to 7-1.

Two batters later, Alo walked to load the bases for Lyons, who ended the contest with a walk-off grand slam.

Jordy Bahl started the game and pitched four innings for OU, allowing three hits and the run while also striking out three Blazer batters.

Nicole May entered the game in the fifth inning and kept UAB off the board, only surrendering one hit to help close out the win.

Oklahoma will have a chance to sweep the Blazers on Saturday, as the two teams will meet again on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. in the final game of the weekend.

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