Notes on Kentucky and UIC

[TropicalSooner]

The Sooners open their home season at Marita Hynes Stadium this weekend against #16 Kentucky and Univ IL at Chicago. They play each team on Friday and then again on Saturday. The USA Today Coaches Poll ranks Kentucky at #17. D-1 Softball and Softball America both have them at #14.
Let's take a look at what these two teams bring to Norman.

Kentucky first:

The Wildcats are coming to town. And they are still "PO'd" at the "tie" with Texas. They bring a 10-3-1 overall record with them. Their losses include a 2-4 loss to UT Arlington which seems unlikely until you consider it was the next game after the Texas debacle. The other two are to UCLA and Northwestern....which at least make some sense. They are a veteran team with a lot of Seniors and Juniors in their starting lineup with just a sprinkling of Frosh and Soph's. Their Pitching staff is very good with Junior Stephanie Schoonover leading the way.

Offense:
Led by Senior catcher Kayla Kowalik at .426 BA, the veteran offense has 5 starters hitting above .300 including two over .400. They move their lineup around quite a bit. Players starting in LF wind up in RF and a ph travels out to LF. In a way a bit like ours, their lineup is "fluid". As a team, they are batting .311, with 8 2B's, 2 3B's, and 13 HRs. They have 11 SBs in 17 att. Their OB% is .388 and their SLG% is .453. Also as a team, they have struck out 63 times and have walked 44 times.

Defense:
As a team they have made 12 errors on the season. 3 of those came from Coffel the SS, and 5 came from Lorsung at 3B. If we continue to pull the ball hard down the 3B line, we may benefit from more mishandled balls.

Pitching:
Junior pitcher Stephanie Schoonover is their ace. She has 7 complete games and a record of 6-0 with an ERA of 0.97. She has 75 k's and 15 BB's scattered over 50.2 IP. Her BAA is .158. Behind her is Soph Alexia Lacatena, 3-0, 0.69 ERA, 21 k's, 1 BB over 20.1 IP. Next would have to be Soph Izzy Harrison, who we saw for a couple of innings in our game last year. She is 1-2, 4.20 ERA, 14 k's and 13 BB's over 11.2 IP. Others on the staff are Senior sloan Gayan and 5th yr Kennedy Sullivan. Both are sporting very high ERA's with minimal innings pitched and will not likely be seen this weekend. One has to think we see Lacatena probably on Friday so Schoonover can watch our hitters for a game and then she would pitch on Saturday. Harrison looks likely for relief. Now that I've said all that, they'll probably throw everybody both games!


Next--UIC:

The Flames are a member of the Missouri Valley Conference. Conference games are with the likes of Drake, Bradley, Evansville, MO St, Ill St, Ind St, Valparaiso, SIUE, and so on. So far this year, they are 0-13 on the year, and last year they were 13-32. They do play a tough schedule having played teams like North Texas, Iowa St., Clemson, and Tennessee so far this year. So while they may not be in the Top 25, they do field a team and they will show up and they will give us everything they have to give.

Offense:
I'll start here: their leadoff hitter Alannah Cran (LF) has their highest BA at .300. Everyone else is below her.
The team BA is .188. Also as a team, they have 7 2Bs, 3 3Bs, and 1 HR. As a team, they have walked 27 times, but they've also struck out 87 times. They've stolen 7 bases in 13 attempts.
Defense:
They've made 31 errors as a team.
Pitching:
They have 4 on staff but only 3 have been used. Christina Toniolo has seen the most innings at 34.2 with a 4.85 ERA, 20 BBs and 21 k's. Carlee Jo Clark has 5.19 ERA and 21 BB's, 11 k's over 27.0 IP. Miranda Gomez has 7.64 ERA over 18.1 IP.

It is interesting to note that in their last game with Tennessee, they held the score down to a 0-5 loss. In looking at the box score, I have to think that the Vols were just trying to give their reserves some needed playing time.


The Flames come into this weekend with nothing to lose so expect them to try anything and everything. They may take every pitch--they may swing at every pitch. These games with UIC should be a time that everyone on our bench can get playing time.
Kentucky will be tough. It will be like the Duke or Liberty or Washington games. I think they will do well in the SEC this year and they are going to be ready for us. If Kentucky winds up suffering the same fate as other ranked teams we've faced earlier, such as Stanford, Fullerton, A&M, Utah, UCLA, it will lead me to ask: are we really that good? But then, what happened with Baylor? Or is it just that we're snake bit with Orme? Perhaps we should look around at future outstanding opposing pitchers to see if there is another "Orme" out there waiting for us. But that is for another future thread.
For now, let's just take these one game at a time and right now our focus is on Kentucky and UIC.

[TN Sooner]

Barry Tramel had an interesting blurb in this mornings column about UIC. For those that can access:

https://www.oklahoman.com/story/sports/ ... 957687007/

For those that can’t, I’ll try to add screenshot…

[TN Sooner]

I love the chutzpah of a coach that got run-ruled 8-0 and 9-0 complaining about having the run-rule in th WCWS.

[OUBeliever56A]

Thanks to 'TropicalSooner' for the excellent recap of the weekend.

Here are a few more thoughts.

I think UIC will have a tough weekend. OU and Kentucky are very good teams. With a team BA of less than the 'Mendoza" line while allowing almost 8 runs a game does not indicate that there will be much success for them this weekend. I expect the two games against UIC to be 'scrimmages' of sort. Everyone that can play, will play for OU. I expect that Deal will get one of the two starts versus UIC. I do not know who gets the other. (Coach Gasso did say that we will see a lot of Nicole May this weekend at the Coaches Luncheon.) Maybe May gets two starts due to that comment, so she (May) would get the opening start of Friday against UIC with Deal getting the start on Saturday vs UIC or vice versa.

Kentucky on the other hand is a very good team. You will remember that last year at Kentucky it was the Lynnsie Elam and Jordy Bahl show in Lexington as the Sooners defeated the 9-1 in 6 innings. (Alo and Brito helped a bit also.) This year they are scoring 5.2 runs per game and allowing 2.3. The margin of error is slight due to that. The offense is led by Kowalik and Coffel with some help from Nesby, Sullivan and Tobias. Coffel comes in with 6 HRs on the season. The Kentucky pitching is lead by Schoonover and Lacatena but Harrison can help as well. I think we will see Schoonover and Harrison start against OU with Lacatena pitching in relief as first up in both games. Yes, Schoonover has been good so far in in 2023. It will be a challenge for the Sooners to face her this weekend.

I think that Storako and May will get starts against Kentucky. That will leave Bahl with 2 or 3 relief appearences this weekend. I think the desire is to even-up the innings between Bahl (29.0), May (21.0) and Storako (20.2). To do so, I think will take this weekend and next weekend at Mississippi State for things to get even. I do not see this as a demotion or a promotion for any of the three of them. Just a equalling of the workload. It is a long season. With the numerous left-handed hitters for Kentucky, I think we will see Deal in relief in at least one game against Kentucky which is necessary for her development.

On the offensive side of the Sooners play this weekend. It will be interesting to see how the Hansen, Lee, Nugent, Sanders, Erickson logjam is handled at C. 1B and DP. It is very interesting that of those five players right now, that Erickson and Nugent have the best stats. Erickson is also in the consideration for the RF job with Torres and Lilio I think. Again, the two youngsters have the best stats. The other 5 slots in the batting order are as expected I think. Maybe we see a Lyons HR this weekend with the other four Coleman, Jennings, Boone and Brito continuing to play well.

Oklahoma has a Top 5 offense and a Top 5 pitching staff right now. I think both sets of numbers improve this weekend. On defense the .990 fielding percentage jumps out at you as does the 3 errors. I really hope we see the very good defense continued to be played by the Sooners.

I think the Sooners should go 4-0 this weekend if they eliminate the potential big inning by Kentucky. The Wildcats will get some runners on base. If OU keeps the ball in the field, they should do well.

The games are at 3 PM vs UIC and 5:30 PM vs Kentucky on Friday and then at 3 PM vs Kentucky and 5:30 PM vs UIC on Saturday. The weather will likely be cool with some wind, so bring a coat and a hat to Marity Hynes both days for two sellouts to watch the Sooners.

Good luck to the Sooners this weeknd.

Boomer Sooner!

[BudaSooner]

Just a quick note to Sooner fans: All games will be streamed on SoonerVision and ESPN+ this weekend per SoonerSports.com!