Super softball
OU Sooners will host Arkansas in the NCAA Super Regional.
NORMAN — After four years together, Patty Gasso knows when Paige Parker is lying.
The Oklahoma softball coach can tell when her senior pitcher is being truthful about her pain — and when she’s downplaying it for the sake of her team.
With a berth to the super regional on the line, Gasso wanted to put the ball in Parker’s hand for Sunday afternoon’s eventual 7-0 win against Missouri — but she also wanted to make sure doing so was the right decision for Parker and for the Sooners.
Less than 48 hours earlier, Parker and her family were involved in a three-car pile-up on Highway 9, and soreness kept Parker from pitching in Saturday’s win.
Sunday morning, Gasso asked Parker where her pain was on a scale of 1-10.
“I have pitched big games and felt much worse,” Parker told her coach, extending her hand.
Gasso didn’t need to hear anything else. She dropped the ball in Parker’s hand, ceremoniously giving her the starting nod.
“You could see she really wanted to get on the field,” Gasso said. “She’s earned it and deserved it, being here for four years and putting us in a pinnacle of the best out there. She’s going to get what she wants, so she has the immunity. I gave her the ball.”
Parker pitched 4 ½ innings, giving up three hits, hitting one batter, and striking out another.
With her help, OU (53-3) posted its third consecutive shutout, outscoring its regional opponents 24-0 en route to a super regional berth against Arkansas.
“The way this happened this weekend with three shutouts, with a defense that was on point, offense coming up clutch, it was everything we wished for and hoped for,” Gasso said. “I don’t know that it could’ve been that much better than it was.”
While the team’s regional went exactly according to plan on the field, Parker’s weekend wasn’t nearly as smooth away from it.
Parker, along with her dad and sister, were rearended in the midst of slow, heavy traffic shortly after OU’s 9-0 win against Boston University on Friday.
The trio had just left Parker’s house and were headed to dinner when they were hit from behind only a couple miles away from Marita Hynes Field. When Parker, who was sitting in the passenger’s seat, emerged from the car, she saw they were the first of a three-car pile up.
Though the accident wasn’t severe, it made her muscles stiff. To get game-ready, Parker received a lot of massage treatment and a heat bath to help her body loose up.
Parker isn’t a stranger to playing through pain.
During her sophomore season, she was the primary pitcher through OU’s Women’s College World Series run. Battling fatigue and extreme soreness, Parker pitched complete games in five of six WCWS games, throwing 569 pitches in 36 innings over six days.
After that experience, a fender-bender certainly wasn’t going to keep the senior from pitching her team to the super regionals.
She stayed in until the fifth inning, coming out in favor of fellow senior Paige Lowary after getting Missouri’s leadoff hitter to pop up in shallow field.
When she exited the circle, Parker was greeted with a standing ovation from the crowd and loud cheers from her own dugout.
“I felt pretty good, just knowing that my teammates were so supportive throughout the entire weekend,” Parker said. “Knowing that they had my back today on defense was kind of huge, and they came up with some fantastic plays. Just having their support was really huge for me.”