Oklahoma Quotes
“I think it’s been the story of our season. What I loved about this team is that I put them in tough situations. We were on the road so much, have gone through a lot of different trials. But I can’t tell you how proud I am of them, especially after that really tough game, knowing that our season was on the line.
To be honest, Alabama is one of the best teams we played all season. There’s no way that team should have been an eight-seed. No way. So, it was just, like, a good old-fashioned dogfight, may the best team win.
This team decided that they were not ready to go home. They all came together really, really well.” – Patty Gasso on winning as a team
“I just wanted to have G’s back. Just going in there, not focusing on the outcome, just focusing on getting out for this team. They’re going to score runs for me. Working ahead in the counts.” – Mariah Lopez on subbing in for Giselle Juarez
“I came into that at-bat knowing I was not going to be denied again. I just kind of dug down deep and that happened.” – Jocelyn Alo on her home run
“I know we’ve had a couple of really good hits throughout the first game and the second game, but we couldn’t really string together too much. Once Jocelyn hit that home run, it was like a spark was ignited. Once this team gets a spark, it’s really hard to stop us. Definitely made us a lot more free, kind of got the ball rolling.” – Nicole Mendes on Alo’s home run
“We definitely weren’t dancing, but we had, like, Fale told us right after the game, we’re not going to let this loss define us. The seniors did a really good job of recuperating the group back together. Just kind of refocusing on what we need to do.” – Jocelyn Alo on the mood in the locker room after losing the first game on Sunday
“Well, G, you could see she was a little bit spent. But we wanted to see if we could get an inning or two out of here because she still would be able to remain in the game.
Mariah, she is a veteran of the staff. Wanted to give her an opportunity to kind of pound the zone and go hard at ’em, in and out. She did a phenomenal job. I am so happy for her because she’s really been waiting patiently for her time. This was the biggest game of her career, was how she threw tonight.” – Patty Gasso on her pitchers for the second game
Alabama Quotes
“The top. The top for sure. I think I hit a home run against Auburn, that’s probably up there, too. Definitely today. That’s what you dream about doing. You dream about it as a little kid getting a walk-off hit, your team coming and doing a hug in the middle of the field.
Yeah, that was fun. I love this team.” – Caroline Hardy on where her walk-off in the first game ranks as a career moment
“When she hit that, I’m sure you noticed everybody on the team just went crazy. I think that’s what our team is about. No one cares who hit it. No one cares who was on first. It just happened. That’s what we were proud about on this team. The seniors have taught us everything. They demonstrate it every day.” – Montana Fouts on Hardy’s walk-off in Game One
“Well, I just think with 60 wins, beating the people that we beat here, we definitely proved our No. 8 seed. We were worthy of that, for sure (laughter). Possibly a little bit more.
You know, the committee has difficult decisions to make. They’re doing this for free. I appreciate what they do, too. There’s always going to be some sort of controversy or whatever. Just the name of the game.
I’ll schedule smarter next year, that’s for sure.” – Patrick Murphy on his team being a #8 seed.
Game Notes
- Oklahoma extends their 2019 record to 57-4. Alabama closes out the 2019 season at 60-10.
- The Sooners now sit at 32-18 all-time at the WCWS, while Alabama moves to 20-23.
- Oklahoma ties up the all-time series between the two squads at 10-10.
- The Sooners move to 3-0 in the 2019 WCWS when scoring in the first inning.
- Sooner pitcher Mariah Lopez took over for Juarez in the bottom of the second, making her first appearance at the 2019 WCWS.
- At the bottom of the fifth inning, sophomore Jocelyn Alo launched a two-run homer to center to put the Sooners up 4-1. It was good for Alo’s 17th home run this season. Alo leads the team in RBIs with 56 to her name.
- Alo’s homer was the Sooners’ first home run in the 2019 World Series.
- Nicole Mendes hit a two-run blast in the bottom of the sixth that gave the Sooners a 6-3 lead.
- Grace Lyons extended the Sooners’ lead to 7-3 at the bottom of the sixth with a solo homer. With her home run, Oklahoma surpassed Arizona for the most home runs this season with 111, which is also an OU program record.
- Mariah Lopez improved to 19-1 on the year. She pitched 4.1 innings, allowing two runs on four hits and striking out three.
- Oklahoma and Alabama used a combined total of five pitchers in the contest, tying for the second-most pitchers played in a single game at the WCWS.
- OU advances to the 2019 WCWS championship series to face No. 2 seed UCLA, beginning with game one on Monday night at 6:30 p.m. CT. It will be the first time since the WCWS moved to abest-of-three format in 2005 that the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds meet in the championship.
- Oklahoma returns to the championship series for the fifth time in eight years. The Sooners have played in four championship series since the move to a best-of-three format, going 7-3 and winning three NCAA Championships (2013, 2016, 2017) in those appearances.
- Before it was a best-of-three series, Oklahoma defeated UCLA UCLA 3-1 in 2000 and winning its first national title.