OU Softball: Uncharacteristic Mistakes in Every Phase Knock Oklahoma Into Tuesday Elimination Game

For three years, the Sooners have dominated the sport of softball, but Monday against Florida they struggled to make winning plays.

Oklahoma's Patty Gasso, Avery Hodge and Rylie Boone / BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY

OKLAHOMA CITY — When literally nothing is working, not even a team as dominant as Oklahoma stands much of a chance.

Everybody has a bad day, and the Sooners’ happened Monday in the semifinals of the Women’s College World Series, a shocking 9-3 loss to the Florida Gators.

Last year’s team was nearly the very definition of perfect, winning a third straight crown with a 61-1 record.

But nobody’s perfect, and perfection should never be expected for any team at any sporting event. 

Still, the Sooners had been so good for so long — an 11-game winning streak, 10 consecutive victories at the WCWS, 20 straight NCAA Tournament wins overall, three national championships in a row — with many of those in dominating fashion — that another coronation was beginning to feel inevitable.

Instead, the Sooners will try to regroup and play an if-necessary elimination rematch with the Gators on Tuesday, with the winner advancing to the WCWS Championship Series starting Wednesday at Devon Park.

"They're fighters," coach Patty Gasso said. "They're fighters. It is hard to beat us twice, and it has happened this season. And this is really going to be a call out: they know what's going on, they know what's at stake. So who are we? What are we made of?"

The rematch was supposed to be played Monday afternoon, but weather throughout the morning pushed it to Tuesday’s open date. Texas and Stanford are in the other semifinal, with the top-seeded Longhorns needing to win only once. 

In a sport where the Sooners almost always have the best hitters, the best defense, the best pitchers and even the best base runners, No. 2-seed OU lost literally every phase of Monday’s game.

Gasso, with her 1,512 all-time victories, frequently offers a heartfelt appreciation for her defense, and took time Saturday to praise them after another spectacular performance that has become somewhat the norm.

But Monday, defense let the Sooners down more than anything else, and led to the Gators’ first three runs.

In the first, shortstop Tiare Jennings reacted too slow to a routine ground ball that Korbe Otis beat out for an infield single. Otis should have been the second out — Jocelyn Erickson followed by striking out — but instead was able to swipe second base on a close play, then raced home on Reagan Walsh’s soft single down the left field line.

In the second, Kendra Falby flared a one-out single in front of Rylie Boone in left field. It looked like Boone had zero chance of making the catch in the air, but she left her feet as the ball dropped well in front of her glove and rolled to the fence, resulting in an inside-the-park home run.

Skylar Wallace then followed that home run with one of her own — her 15th of the season, and well over the fence, for a 3-0 lead. Later, she would hit number 16 to give Florida a six-run lead.

Base running was not exactly a strength of the Sooners, either, as Kasidi Pickering made a major mistake at third base in the second inning.

After drawing a four-pitch walk and moving to second on a wild pitch, Pickering got to third on Kinzie Hansen’s groundout back to the circle. That brought Boone to the plate, and when Boone delivered a fly ball to deep center field, it seemed Pickering would score uncontested.

But Falby made a spectacular running, reaching catch in deep center, and Pickering was already more than halfway home, assuming the ball would not be caught. She had to go back to third and couldn’t advance, and was stranded on Cydney Sanders’ strikeout.

"Oh, that was totally my fault," Gasso said. "So I own that one. That was an on believable play. And I'm looking up I'm telling her 'OK, time, okay. it's sort of go.' I'm looking for the next runner. So that was on me. it was nothing she did wrong. I own that."

The Sooners were flubbing every opportunity, while the Gators were making every play.

Batting? That had to come around at some point, right? It did, but too little, too late.

The Sooners have seven players with double-digit home runs (and another at 9), and seven batting .375 or better coming into Monday. Their acumen at the plate has become the stuff of legend in softball circles. This team woke up Monday with 114 home runs and 99 doubles.

But heading into the fifth inning, OU was hitting .143 as a team — 2-for-14 — with two singles against Florida starter Keagan Rothrock. That included a 1-for-10 showing with runners on base. Two first-inning fly balls by Jayda Coleman and Jennings died at the base of the wall — the closest anyone came to leaving the yard until Avery Hodge’s one-out double to the right-center gap in the fifth inning, followed by Jennings’ two-run home run that cut it to 7-3. OU left 10 runners on base.

Surely pitching wouldn’t abandon Gasso’s squad, would it?

It would.

Facing the conundrum of bringing back ace Kelly Maxwell for her third WCWS start or rolling out veteran Nicole May or sophomore Kierston Deal for the first time in the series, Gasso opted to go with May, who lasted just two innings and gave up four runs on six hits and a walk, followed in relief by Deal, who gave up three runs on three hits and two walks.

Maxwell no doubt will be available for Tuesday’s showdown.

Gasso was asked in the postgame press conference about a factor that mounted on last year's team: pressure. This team has a chance to do something no one has ever done before in winning four straight national titles. Was Monday an example of pressure getting to them?

"I think it can," she said. "We have a team that's very athletic, and they're very used to winning and when they don't get what they want, you can see something changed a little bit. And it can be disruptive — for rallies and so forth. So those are things that, it's just a natural reaction. If they don't get — they want to do something so bad for the team that if it doesn't happen, they'll get upset with themselves, whether it's a pitcher or hitter. That's just love for your family. You want to make them better. You want to give something to your family, and you couldn't deliver. So those are things we got to go back and kind of adjust as well, that we keep a little more steady with our approach and stay aggressive. But steady with our approach."

"I don't think we were just pressing," said Jennings. "I just thought maybe we're just trying to find ways to keep up. I mean, every time that we felt we had momentum, boom, they'd come back out and just score some runs."

"We've been in this position before," said Hansen, "so we know how to get out of this. Our first year here at the World Series, we lost the first game and came out of the loser's bracket. So this feeling isn't new to us."

Florida scored three times in the fourth to take a 7-1 lead — Oklahoma’s biggest deficit in a game since the 2022 season. 

After OU’s brief outburst in the top of the fifth, Wallace blasted a two-run home run off Deal in the bottom of the inning to extend it back out to 9-3.

OU loaded the bases on three walks with two out in the top of the seventh but Boone flied out to left field to end it.

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