Comeback kids
Oklahoma scored seven runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to down Wichita State 7-6 on Wednesday night.
“This was not a good game, but we’re a good team because a good team can know in their lowest points that they’re never out of it. That’s what I felt from this group, especially as we started to create a little bit of momentum and after we scored that first run, it just felt like, all right, here we go. We just needed something.” OU coach Patty Gasso
NORMAN — While the sold-out crowd at Marita Hynes Field belted “Oklahoma” at the top of its lungs, the Sooner softball team circled up in its dugout.
Down 6-0 to Wichita State on Wednesday, OU faced its largest deficit of the season, and the No. 2 team in the country was down to its final six outs.
The situation looked dire, but the Sooners (34-2, 9-0 Big 12) weren’t going to let themselves panic.
“It was just breathe,” senior short shop Kelsey Arnold said, recounting the team’s conversation. “I think we were just so tight that we weren’t breathing, and we weren’t having fun. In order to play this game and be successful, you have to have fun while you’re doing that.”
Once Wichita State (22-15, 5-4 AAC) issued four consecutive walks to open the inning, plating the Sooners’ first run of the afternoon, Oklahoma finally took a breath and started having fun.
When the fun got going, it didn’t stop.
By the end of the inning,
OU completely erased its deficit with seven runs and held on to beat the Shockers 7-6, extending its win streak to 26 games.
“This was not a good game, but we’re a good team because a good team can know in their lowest points that they’re never out of it,” coach Patty Gasso said. “That’s what I felt from this group, especially as we started to create a little bit of momentum and after we scored that first run, it just felt like, all right, here we go. We just needed something.”
That something came as Wichita State walked six batters in the sixth inning, and catcher Lea Wodach cleared the bases with her second home run of the season. Freshman Jocelyn Alo pushed the Sooners over the top with a 2 RBI single to right field, plating the winning run.
“Six runs is not something we can’t come back from,” Gasso said. “I don’t know that there’s an amount of runs that we can’t come back from with this group.”
OU’s uphill battle began after Wichita State’s offense exploded in the third inning.
Sooner ace Paige Parker started off the third frame with a strikeout, but the senior southpaw gave up a single followed by a double to put runners on second and third. That’s when Laurie Derrico stepped up and smashed a home run over the left field wall to give the Shockers a 3-0 lead.
Parker forced the next batter to pop out for the second out of the inning, but she put the next hitter on base with a wild pitch. Two batters later, Parker gave up the second threerun homer of the inning with Caitlin Bingham’s shot to center field.
Entering Wednesday’s game, Parker had given up just six earned runs all season. By the end of the third inning, she doubled that number.
“Paige Parker gets to have a game like this,” Gasso said. “She does. She had it.”
After Bingham’s home run, Parker was pulled in favor of sophomore Mariah Lopez, who held the Sooners steady as they attempted to climb out of their hole.
“She kept us in the game,” Gasso said.
Even with Lopez’s performance, OU struggled to find a rhythm.
On defense, the Sooners pressed, fumbling on a routine bunt play in the fourth inning and committing an error on a throw from right field to first in the fifth.
On offense, OU wasn’t faring much better. By the end of the game, the Shockers turned three double plays.
“These guys were hitting screaming line drives and they were doubling us off,” Gasso said. “How do you get upset about that? Just a love the tenacity and the effort and the will to keep going when a lot of teams would have surrendered.”
The Sooners could’ve panicked and entered desperation mode in the final outs of the game.
But they didn’t, and the team’s late-game calmness carried them to their biggest rally of the season.
“A good team will find ways with three outs left to swing, or whatever it is that you have,” Gasso said. “Because you don’t quit, and you don’t give up and you trust in what you’re doing.”