OU Softball: Florida Throttles Oklahoma to Force WCWS Elimination Game Tuesday

The Sooners never got going against the Gators on Monday after sitting through a three-hour weather delay in the WCWS semifinals.

BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY

OKLAHOMA CITY — Sloppy softball has Oklahoma suddenly fighting for its life. 

The Sooners never looked sharp after a three hour weather delay, committing a multitude of uncharacteristic mistakes in a 9-3 defeat to the Florida Gators at Devon Park on Monday. 

“Tough game for us,” OU coach Patty Gasso said after the game. “Florida hit the ball really well today.

“… I don't think this was our best game by any means. The beauty of this is that we get another opportunity to make it right.”

OU’s blunders came in all three phases, ultimately sinking the Sooners.

Shortstop Tiare Jennings was slow to fire over to throw out Korbe Otis in the first inning, allowing Reagan Walsh to put Florida on top with a two-out single. 

In the top of the second inning, freshman Kasidi Pickering failed to tag up at third, meaning she couldn’t tie the game for the Sooners when Rylie Boone was robbed of an extra-base hit at the wall on a spectacular catch by Florida’s Kendra Falby. 

“That was totally my fault,” Gasso said. “I own that one. That was an unbelievable play. I'm looking up. I'm telling her, ‘Okay, it's through, go.’ I'm looking for the next runner. That was on me. It was nothing she did wrong. I own that.”

Boone then dove and missed a blooped hit from Falby, allowing her to round the bases for an inside-the-park home run before Skylar Wallace punished OU starter Nicole May for missing her location over the middle of the plate. 

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Down 3-0, Avery Hodge gave up an out by stepping on the plate in the third inning.

May exited the game with runners on the corners in favor of left-hander Kierston Deal in the bottom of the third inning, and Deal did well to get out of the frame while only allowing one more run to score, but it was too little, too late as the Gators already had the momentum necessary to hold off the Sooners. 

The first time OU appeared to catch any kind of break, an RBI-single by Kinzie Hansen in the top of the fourth, was immediately erased by a three-run shot from Walsh that put the Gators up 7-1. 

“We need to be really working on all cylinders tomorrow,” Gasso said of the mistakes in the field, in the circle and at the plate. “We can't have one part of our game good and think we're going to win at the World Series. We've going to have to have all three working for us tomorrow.”

Florida’s six-run advantage was the largest deficit the Sooners have faced in the NCAA Tournament since falling behind UCLA 5-1 on June 6 in the 2022 WCWS. 

Oklahoma rebounded from that 7-3 defeat with a 15-0 victory in five innings to advance to the Championship Series against Texas. 

Everything else was academic, meaning that the future SEC foes will regroup on Tuesday in Oklahoma City in a do-or-die battle for a spot in the WCWS finals. 

Jennings pushed a two-run shot over the fence in the fifth, and the Sooners tried to stage a two-out rally. 

Ella Parker singled and Alyssa Brito walked, but Pickering immediately grounded back out to Florida pitcher Keagan Rothrock to halt the rally and keep the Gators’ lead at 7-3 headed to the bottom half of the inning. 

Wallace crushed her second homer of the afternoon to push the lead back out to 9-3 in the fifth, putting the Sooners at risk of getting run-ruled for only the second time ever in the NCAA Tournament, with the other coming all the way back in 1995.

The Sooners were unable to roar back in the seventh, setting up Tuesday’s matchup. 

“This team has been in this position before. We know how to get out of this,” Hansen said. “Our first year here at the World Series we lost the first game, came out of the losers bracket. This feeling isn't new to us.”

A start time has not been announced for tomorrow’s battle between Oklahoma and Florida.