Four games. That’s what Oklahoma needs…four games. The Sooners have to win twice on Saturday and twice again on Sunday in order to defend their back-to-back titles in the championship round of the Women’s College World Series.
If OU can make it to Monday nigh then their opening round blemish is erased as the championship series resets to a best two out of three format. Until then, the Sooners are one loss away from elimination, which leaves no margin for error.
Arizona State Sun Devils
ONE. RUN. GAME. #WCWS pic.twitter.com/y85Mx7LHbc
— NCAA Softball (@NCAASoftball) May 31, 2018
The first team standing in Oklahoma’s way is Arizona State (48-12). OU and ASU will start Saturday’s slate of games at the WCWS with an 11:00 AM (CT) start time.
The Sun Devils lost a slug-fest to Oregon in the opener of the WCWS. Five ASU players crossed the plate off the bats of two home run swings and a sixth scored off a single up the middle. The Sun Devils recorded eight hits against the Ducks and they made every single one of the count.
Kindra Hackbarth went 3-for-4 from the plate, scoring twice and knocking in a run, in the opener. Morgan Howe delivered a 3-run homer in her 2-for-4 plate performance, and DeNae Chatman had a 2-run blast in the top of the first inning.
Pitching was a struggle for ASU as the Ducks blistered the Sun Devils for 11 runs off 14 hits. G Juarez (26-5, 1.21 ERA) went the distance for Arizona State, making her responsible for all of Oregon’s offense. Breanna Macha (16-6, 2.16) is a likely starter against Oklahoma.
The Long Road Ahead
After Thursday’s loss Oklahoma head coach Patty Gasso said that her team is embracing the road they they are on. “I know this might sound crazy, but this road was meant to be for us and we embrace it,” Gasso said. “We’ve been very fortunate to win the first game the last couple years, and it sets you up nicely but this road is a different road this year and we’re embracing this.”
No team that lost its opener of the WCWS has reached the championship round since Arizona did it in 2010. Even worse for the Sooners, only twice has a team come back from losing the opener and won the championship. Texas A&M did it in 1983 and UCLA in 2003.
This isn’t your average college softball team though. They are seasoned veterans of the Women’s College World Series and they’ve already strung together massive winning streaks this season. A four-game streak is nothing to them.
“It was just what Coach said, just bounce back,” Shay Knighten, the 2017 Most Outstanding Player in the World Series, said. “We know we can bounce back. Like she said, this road, it’s not going to be easy. Everyone’s gunning to win the national championship, and we just kind of put our heads together and said, you know what, this is not how we want to go out.
We want to go out with everything that we have on the field and if they beat us, they beat us, but it’s not going to be because we didn’t try. We want to finish this strong and we want to get back to where we know we can be. It’s just having the will to fight and wanting what we want and not being afraid to go for it.”