Day 1 thoughts on OU Softball @ Starkville: OU 2 wins / 20-0

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OUBeliever56A
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Day 1 thoughts on OU Softball @ Starkville: OU 2 wins / 20-0

Post by OUBeliever56A »

The Oklahoma Sooners played two games on Friday in Starkville, MS and played well as they won both games. the defeated SE Louisiana 13-0 in 5 innings and the defeated Mississippi State 7-0 in a seven inning game in the night cap.

Two thoughts come to mind quickly. 1) The Oklahoma pitching is very, very good. 2) When the Sooner bats are hot, they simple crush the softball.

Before I get to the games, I want to discuss the SE Louisiana team. Yes, they were 19-2 with a good RPI ranking. But I think that ended up being a bit deceiving about how good the Lions were. In Starkville by 3 PM on Friday, SE LA lost three games. SE LA lost to Mississippi State 5-6 on Thursday night. SE LA pitched their two best pitchers against the Bulldogs and against Omaha on Friday morning before they played Oklahoma. SE LA lost to Omaha 2-3 in the first game Saturday. Against Oklahoma, SE LA pitched the rest of their staff and that did not work out too well for them. How good are the Lions from SE Louisiana, I really do not know. I think they hype about them is a bit overdone at this point.

Now, the Sooner Pitching:

Jordy Ball was given the ball to pitch against the SE Louisiana Lions. As I said above, the strength of SE LA is difficult to fully understand. What is not hard to understand is how well Jordy Bahl pitched on Friday against them. Bahl threw a total of 53 pitches with 40 strikes for over 75% of her pitches being strikes. Bahl struck out 8 batters with 7 swinging and one looking at strike 3. The only batter that saw 3 balls from Bahl was the first batter. I think only one other batter had 2 balls on her as Bahl just through strikes. the camera angle made it hard to tell how much Bahl's pitches were moving, but there were lots of swings and misses. That is a great sign. The only hard hit ball off of Bahl was the for the 3rd out of the first inning as the batter hit a liner-ish ball to Erickson that was easily caught. The best defensive play of the game behind Bahl was the play made by Hodge on a high hopper behind the circle as Hodge came running in from her second base position to field and throw the ball in one step to first base for the out. It was a fine play.

Bahl raised her record to 6-1 with the win and lowered her ERA to 2.05 for the season.
Bahl's 5 inning perfect game (no hits, no walks, no HB and no errors, looked easy. fifteen batters faced fifteen batters out. It was that simple.

Nicole May was selected to go to the circle for OU in the second game of the day against Mississippi State. May, brought an 0.00 ERA into the game, and she left with the same ERA. May was in control the entire 7 inning game as Mississippi State rarely hit the ball hard and was limited to a scratch hit in the 4th on a ball hit short to 3B and a bunt in the 5th inning. May walked single batters in the 2nd, 3rd and 5th inning. Only two batters reached second base. One in the 4th on the scratch hit when Brito's throw to first base was high and the runner moved to second on the errant throw. The other time was in the 5th inning when May walked a batter after the bunt single. May got out of the 1st and 2nd jam with the help of a double play started by Jennings as she caught a line drive and threw to Lilio who covered 2B quickly to turn the double play. May added 6 strikeouts to her resume in her complete game, shutout win.

May raised her record to 6-0 and extended her scoreless streak of innings to 39.0 innings for the season. May's 61 strikeout in those 39 innings is impressive while only allowing 15 hits with only 2 doubles allowed.

The Sooner offense:

I have said before that if the Sooners have 3 hot hitters in a game or during a DHer, they can provide enough offense to win most any game or games. That was the story in my mind yesterday. Three Sooner hitters fueled the Oklahoma offense to 20 runs on Friday. Lee, Brito and Coleman were the key offensive players for the Sooners

Haley Lee - 5 for 7 with 4 RS, 5 RBIs, a double and a HR.
Alyssa Brito - 5 for 7 with 4 RS, 4 RBIs, two doubles and a HR.
Jayda Coleman - 3 for 4 with 4 RS, 4 walks, a double and a SB.

Others did help. Nugent added a 3-run HR in the first game. Erickson and Torres added RBI doubles in the first game. Hansen (1 RBI), Jennings (1 RBI) and Grace Green each added doubles in Game 1. Quincee Lilio added her own RBI double in game 2. Only two Sooners that had an at bat, did not have a hit yesterday.

It was difficult to tell on camera, but it looked like that the Sooners often hit the ball so hard that the ball was passed the outfielder and hitting the wall behind them before they could take a couple steps. One ball was dropped in CF on a fly ball by Hansen but other than that, the balls were just hit very hard.

For the day the Sooners were 26 for 60. That is a .433 BA, with a .485 OB% and 1.317 slug%. The offense is just getting better it seems.

Defensive review:

The Sooners did commit and error on Friday on the errant throw by Brito. That makes 4 for the season that dropped their fielding percentage to .991. That is still extremely good. With the shuffling at SS and 2B lately has played very well IMO. I mentioned the Hodge play and the DP started by Jennings as good plays also. Boone made a nice play on a ball hit to LF also.

Overall Comments:

Coach Gasso is using her bench liberally this season as the season has played out. Oklahoma played 13 and then 12 players in the two games. It is becoming more apparent each game that if a batter has a 'hiccup' bat (that is not a good one) that a player is often pulled from the bench to play. The Sooner coaches are giving players a chance to earn playing time. When they do not capitalize on that opportunity, another player is given the chance quickly.

Saturday in Stark(Vegas)ville:

The Sooners play Mississippi State at 3 PM. The game in on the SECN for those that want to watch the softball game amongst the various other Sooner sporting events today. I think that Alex Storako will be given the softball today to pitch for OU. With Hansen catching both games yesterday, I would expect her to catch today unless she needs a break. If so, maybe Lee catches and Hansen moves to DP. Nugent started two games in RF yesterday. Perhaps that is a new trend for the Sooners. I think Erickson will start at 1B, Brito at 3B, Boone in LF and Coleman in CF. Perhaps Hodge starts at SS today with Jennings moving back to 2B. But Lilio played well at 2B yesterday so the option of Jennings at SS and Lilio at 2B is there.

I think the Sooners have more to show today in Starkville. The Sooners were a hit away form a run-rule game in both games yesterday. i think that they will get the run-rule win today.

Boomer Sooner!
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