OU softball: Sooners pull away from Florida State to open WCWS final
OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma had done enough defensively to stay in the game.
It was the offense that was the problem.
Both the Sooners and Florida State were scoreless entering the bottom of the fourth. The OU offense had just one hit through the first three innings as FSU pitcher Mack Leonard held them in check.
OU coach Patty Gasso decided to have a talk with her lineup.
“I think we went kind of back in the tunnel, and we just talked about, ‘What are we doing? Who are we right now?’ Gasso recalled. “This is not how we play the game. I think the moment got big. For the first time in a long time, they started thinking what is happening right now.
“We just really talked about what's going on. Let's reset. We stopped and we reset.”
That reset seemed to work. The Sooners’ offense found its rhythm en route to a 5-0 win over Florida State in Game 1 of the Women’s College World Series on Wednesday at Hall of Fame Stadium.
It started in that fourth inning. Leadoff hitter Haley Lee was walked, and Kinzie Hansen followed with a double that scored Jordy Bahl, who pinch hit for Lee. Alyssa Brito kept it going with an RBI single that scored Hansen, and Alynah Torres hit her own RBI single to score Brito.
It was that frame that gave the Sooners a 3-0 lead and completely changed the game.
“I think we started off a little bit nervous,” Gasso said. “We had a little conversation as a group. They decided we need to be more like us and stop trying. We don't try hard, we just play. We were trying hard. You can see the difference. Once they got their feet on the ground, it just kind of took off. They hit the ball hard.
“Proud of how we turned that switch really quickly. Then from that moment on, we just were back to our old selves.”
Of course, the Sooners offense had time to find a rhythm thanks to another stellar outing from Bahl.
The sophomore pitcher got her third start of the WCWS and kept the Seminoles’ offense at bay. She pitched all seven innings, recording 10 strikeouts while surrendering just two hits.
Bahl’s biggest moment came in the top of the fourth. After FSU landed two runners on base with only one out, Bahl forced a groundout and a strikeout in the next two at-bats to escape the jam.
That proved critical before the Sooners’ offense got it going in the bottom of the frame.
“I always know the offense is going to get going,” Bahl said. “Especially this entire tournament, we've faced some really tough pitching, but I know they're going to score runs. I just try to do my best to just throw a good game and let the defense work, know that the offense is going to come through.”
The Sooners’ offense got some other big performances, too. They added a run in the fifth after Hansen hit her second RBI of the day to score Jayda Coleman, and their final run came in the sixth inning after Tiare Jennings hit an RBI single to score Rylie Boone. Hansen, Brito and Boone each finished with two hits.
The Seminoles took out Leonard in the fourth and threw out three more pitchers over the final three innings, and the Sooners had no issues adjusting.
“One thing about our offense is we embrace challenges,” Hansen said. “I know we work on a lot of things specifically at practice that we know we're going to see in the game. Going into this game, we knew that they were going to try to take a different strategy, possibly. We know there's a bunch of different challenges that people might throw at us to catch us off guard.
“When that did happen, that did occur going into the second time through the lineup, it didn't really faze us. We were kind of excited to see the challenge, excited to get a different look going into it.”
The Sooners (60-1) have now won 52 straight games and are just one win away from a third straight national title.
* Up next: Game 2 of the WCWS Championship Series is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Thursday on ESPN.