Tough Early Season Road Slate Preparing Cowgirls for Postseason

The tough competition to start the 2020 season is going to be instrumental in helping Oklahoma State softball late in the season as they try and get back to the Women's College World Series for a second-straight season.

STILLWATER – The Cowgirls had a solid weekend this past week as they were in Florida for the St. Pete Clearwater Elite Invitational and went 4-1 against some elite competition.

The weekend started off with a 14-6 win over Virginia Tech, a 5-1 win over South Florida and a 2-0 win over No. 13 Minnesota. Things dipped for a bit as they dropped game three in a 3-2 extra innings heart-breaker to No. 18 Missouri, but they bounced back very strong knocking off No. 9 Alabama 4-1. The Crimson tide began the season as the No. 1 team in the country.

In fact, their performance earned them a spot back in the top 15 as the Cowgirls slid up to No. 14 in the country.

“We were able to beat [Minnesota’s Amber] Fiser and [Alabama’s Montana] Fouts and some of these kids I think are thought of across the country as elite arms and I’m not sure we’ve done that a whole lot in my time here, especially early” said head coach Kenny Gajewski. “We did it late last year, but it’s becoming something our team knows that we can do. When you have that kind of processes and experiences going through your head, it should really help us as we get going.”

The Cowgirls rounded out the weekend of play with an impressive showing against Team USA. They lost 4-0, but that’s against a team that’s going to compete, and most likely win the gold medal at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

It’s tournaments and competition like this past weekend, and the slate of games the Cowgirls have this coming weekend at the Blazer Classic, that’s going to help Oklahoma State have success late in the season.

“I don’t know if you could draw it up any better,” said coach Gajewski. “I feel like we’ve already faced some really good teams and we’re gonna go face three good teams this weekend. There’s no breaks, that’s for sure. That’s the way we try to go about this; so, it’s nothing new, it’s just what we feel like is the best recipe to be ready at the very end.”

However, even with the success that the Cowgirls have had to start the season, there’s always room for improvement.

“We’ve got to get better,” coach Kenny Gajewski said about a few things he learned from this past weekend. “We gave a game away, that was probably the biggest thing I can take away from that. We were in total control of a game and really had some brain farts and lack of focus and lack of concentration that let that one get away from having a perfect record weekend. So, we’ve got some things we’ve got to shore up. I think we’re starting to understand that our pitching is really good, which I thought we would be. Defense is really good, except for a couple of little brain farts. The hitting is coming around. I think what I’m most encouraged about on our offense is that we beat some really good arms. We struck out more than I wanted to; we’ve been focused on that.”

The Cowgirls will be back in action this coming Friday, February 21 as they take on Ole Miss in the Blazer Classic in Birmingham, AL. They’ll face Louisiana immediately following the Ole Miss game and will round out the Classic with games against Louisiana and UAB on Saturday at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. respectively.