Shell-Shocked, Texas Trying to Stay Loose to Keep Title Hopes Alive Against Oklahoma

OKLAHOMA CITY — All tournament long, Texas has found a way to respond.

Mike White’s Longhorns are 6-0 in elimination games in the NCAA Tournament, but they’ll have an entirely different challenge on Thursday night.

Reaching the Women’s College World Series championship series for the first time, Texas crumbled at the hands of Oklahoma’s offensive onslaught in Game 1.

The Sooners bombed six homers, entertaining the 12,234 fans gathered at Hall of Fame Stadium from start to finish en route to a 16-1 romp.

Texas thrived on the road in the Seattle Regional and the Fayetteville Super Regional, and even held things together against this very same OU team in Oklahoma City last Saturday.

But with a title on the line and the atmosphere cranked up to another level by the pro-Oklahoma crowd, and the Longhorns struggled with the little things.

Twice in the first inning, Texas struggled to make routine outs.

As a result, ace pitcher Hailey Dolcini lasted just seven batters before the Sooners chased her out of the game.

“It was like an avalanche,” White said after the game. “Once it starts going, it starts gathering steam, and it's harder to get it to stop.”

And OU never stopped.

The Sooners put runs on the board in every single inning Wednesday night, tying the WCWS record for runs scored in a single contest.

Withstanding the Oklahoma offense on the field was one thing, but the Longhorns appeared to have no answers after the game on where to go from here.

“Yeah, I mean, errors are costly,” Dolcini said off the top in an awkward and emotional postgame press conference.

When veteran Texas catcher Mary Iakopo was asked to diagnose what she saw out of her pitching staff, she could only muster 11 words.

“They're really frickin' good,” she said. “Hats off to their 1 through 9 (hitters).”

Unfortunately for Texas, OU’s big first inning came after the Sooners had already walked in a run in the first inning.

Thursday, Oklahoma’s offense will come to the plate first.

Another fast start from OU could spell disaster for Texas on Thursday, as it only put more wind in Oklahoma’s sails.

“It was excitement of this first game,” OU head coach Patty Gasso said of the fast start Wednesday. “But I'll say one thing that we have over any other team, is the experience of playing in this game. That is big. If you have never been here before, it can be a little overwhelming.

“I do think it's a psychological advantage for us when we come out and we jump early.”

Game 2 will provide a fresh start for Texas. No matter how lopsided the score got on Wednesday, the Longhorns can level the series with a win Thursday.

Having played one contest in the championship series powder keg, White said all is not lost if the team can take some lessons from the Game 1 defeat.

“That's what we've got to do,” White said. “If we go out and speed the game up like we did today, we're going to get the same result probably.

“Again, that's going to be a learning experience for us. Going forward as coaches, we're going to hit that with the team (Thursday) and see what we can do.”

Dolcini said the message to the team will be to spend the day regrouping, and be prepared to hit the reset button from the onset in Game 2.

“Nothing from today carries over,” she said. “So you learn from it and you try not to make the same mistakes again. Then we just come out and play loose. I think we lost a little bit of that today.”

The Longhorns are back in familiar territory, and they’ll have to continue their perfect run in elimination games to keep national title hopes alive Thursday.

“Just got to remind everybody that our back has been against the wall every week we've played, so it's just like another elimination game,” Iakopo said. “So go out all in.

“… Just remember that the worst has already happened and play carefree, loose. That's all we can do.”