Sooners beat BYU behind Cydney Sanders' walk-off home run

NORMAN — After what had been a mostly quiet outing for Oklahoma, the pieces began falling into place in the fifth inning.

Ella Parker and Kinzie Hansen opened the frame with back-to-back singles, then Kasidi Pickering notched her second hit of the game with an RBI single that brought Parker home. The Sooners, leading 5-0, had two base runners on and zero outs.

Cydney Sanders then stepped to the plate and delivered a three-run home run to left field, sealing the Sooners' 8-0 run-rule win over BYU with a walk off on Thursday.

"Ella started it off hot with the first pitch and then everyone just kept building off of that," Sanders said, "and she kind of set my at-bat up a little bit because there was like runners on first and third, so I only knew that I'd have a couple options of pitches so she really like set my at-bat up. I appreciate Ella for that a lot. Same with (Pickering), obviously."

For the Sooners, it was a needed win after a chaotic few days. After a three-game series in Texas last weekend, which saw the Sooners lose the last two, they immediately turned around for a midweek game on Tuesday at Wichita State.

For OU coach Patty Gasso, it was good to be back at Love's Field.

"It’s a good lift after a kind of frustrating situation out in Texas," Gasso said. "Our goal is to get ourselves back under control and really come back attacking and dominating. We need to start peaking, and we talked about that. This is a good chance for us to build off of that."

— Another game, another dominant display in the circle for Kelly Maxwell. The veteran was again called upon to set the tone in Game 1, and she responded by retiring all 12 batters over the first four innings.

Maxwell was fantastic in the circle, falling just short of a no-hitter after allowing her only hit in the fifth inning.

"Command. Early in the count, attacking early," Gasso said of Maxwell's performance. "You know if she gets 10 strikeouts or three strikeouts, as long as we keep the ball in play in the infield or our outfielders can run down anything. So if the ball is being kept in the yard I feel really good about our opportunities, our chances to win and she’s just created a lot of ground balls to (Alyssa Brito) and Tiare (Jennings) and just keeps feeding our infielders. So I thought she was really really good tonight."

— With BYU allowing a team ERA of 8.2 in conference play, the focus was on the OU offense bouncing back from a tough couple games at Texas. The Cougars threw three different pitchers across the five innings in an attempt to disrupt the Sooners' rhythm.

With two outs and no base runners on in the second inning, it looked like the Sooners were headed for a slow start. But Alynah Torres forced a walk, Rylie Boone hit a double and then Jayda Coleman smacked a three-run home run to left field to give the Sooners a 3-0 lead.

Kasidi Pickering added a solo home run in the bottom of the third.

"It’s difficult when they keep throwing different pitchers at you and you could start to see what they were trying to do," Gasso said. "... When they brought the other lefty pitcher back I knew this one (Sanders) wanted to get back up there for that. So I felt like we did a pretty good job with you have to change your mindset. There’s something different coming at you every time you come to the plate. I think we did a good job of that.

"And one thing, I really respect BYU. If you look at their numbers up on the board, I was looking at ours and looking at theirs and our numbers are almost identical offensively. So for Kelly to shut that down and our offense to get some big hits, big strong home runs, it felt good tonight. And it felt so good to be home really. "

— Coleman has now reached a base in 27 consecutive games. Sanders' home run was her first hit in her last 11 at-bats, though she also recorded five walks in that span.

— Up next: The Sooners look to clinch the series at 6 p.m. Friday (ESPN+).