The dream of winning the Women’s College World Series every four seasons continues for the Oklahoma Sooner High School seniors. Standing in their way is Texas Longhornsare looking to win their first ever WCWS title. Neither team took the easy route to reaching the final series.
The top-seeded Longhorns struggled in their super regional games at home. Texas A&MThe Aggies won the first game of the series and swept the home team in the other two, nearly opening the field before the game even began in Oklahoma City.
UT rolled through its first three games at Devon Field without conceding a run. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t challenged — it needed a run in the seventh inning to beat Stanford’s Nijali Canady, 1-0, on Monday. That allowed the Longhorns to rest at home and wait to face either future SEC rival Florida or the Sooners, who will follow Texas into the SEC next year and forego the Big 12.
For the No. 2-seeded Sooners, the trouble started in Oklahoma City. They had won an early round at Loves Field in Norman. In OKC, they swept Duke by run rule in the WCWS opener and then beat UCLA in a close game, 1-0. Then came Florida.
The Sooners had won 20 straight games in the WCWS. They had never been caught out by the run rule. The Gators ended that streak and came within eight points of winning in the first game of the semifinals. It was never in doubt, and OU was set to take the game if it had to on Tuesday afternoon.
The Gators controlled most of the game, hitting three home runs in the first three innings and taking a 5-2 lead when star rookie Keegan Rothrock took the mound.
The Sooners slowly made inroads, closing the gap to 5-4 in the fourth inning and tying the score in the sixth, but Florida’s offense faltered against senior Kelly Maxwell, a transfer from Oklahoma State, who went scoreless through the fourth and fifth innings before the Sooners trailed by one in the bottom of the eighth.
Senior Jayda Coleman hit a leadoff home run to score one run and lead the Gators to a 6-5 walk-off victory that not only kept the Sooners’ seniors’ hopes alive, but also set the stage for the team to achieve another historic feat.
If OU can beat rival Texas in the final series, it will win its eighth championship, which would tie it with Arizona for second-most wins in Division I history. UCLA leads all programs with 12.
They will also be the first team to win four consecutive championships. Currently, UCLA and Oklahoma are both on three consecutive wins. Arizona is on four consecutive, but those championships were not consecutive. The Wildcats won every title from 1993 to 1997, but never had an official champion in 1995, when UCLA’s win over Arizona was annulled.
To achieve those milestones, the Sooners will have to avenge losses in the regular-season series. The Longhorns beat OU 2-1 in early April. Both wins were narrow 2-1 victories and both were played in Austin.
The Sooners got revenge last month by winning the Big 12 softball tournament title, a victory that came on the same field where the two teams will meet starting Wednesday.
The most interesting part of this matchup will be the pitching decisions the head coaches will make: Who will start? How long will her lead be? Will they follow the pattern from the WCWS or try to make a change?
Kelly Maxwell has pitched in three of Oklahoma’s four games in Oklahoma City. She has pitched 32.2 of Oklahoma’s 59 innings in the postseason, including all eight innings of Tuesday’s consolation game against Florida.
Will Maxwell return to the mound on Wednesday, or will head coach Patty Gasso ask one of the other three postseason players to ease the load for the ace? Kierston Diehl pitched six of the team’s 27 innings in the WCWS, second only to Maxwell with 15, so she seems the most likely second option.
However, Gasso primarily used Maxwell and Nicole May in all four regular-season games against the Longhorns. Maxwell pitched 17 innings over three appearances, posting a 2.06 ERA, 0.88 WHIP and 23 strikeouts against UT. May pitched 6.1 innings over two appearances, allowing two earned runs on five hits and one walk with nine strikeouts.
UT has had a somewhat balanced pitching staff during the postseason. Freshman Teagan Cavan and junior Mack Morgan have pitched roughly equal innings, with the rookie pitching 27 of the team’s 61 innings and the veteran pitching 25.1. In Oklahoma City, Cavan pitched 14 innings in two games and Morgan pitched five innings against Florida in a run-scoring win.
If Texas head coach Mike White continues to do what he did in the WCWS, Caban should see plenty of innings, but that’s not how the Longhorns have had the most success in their four games against OU this season.
Citlaly Gutierrez was the Sooners’ go-to pitcher earlier this year. Morgan and Caban both pitched fewer than five innings, appearing in just one game in four games against OU. They were both paired with Ester Czech, who pitched a total of six innings in two games.
Gutierrez has pitched two of the four meetings between the two teams, pitching complete games in both games – a win in one game and a loss in the other. He allowed 13 hits but only three earned runs for a 1.50 ERA and 0.93 WHIP. He struck out 12 batters in both games, including 10 in the Longhorns’ loss in the Big 12 Tournament.
But Gutierrez has been out of favor recently, with inconsistent play keeping him in the dugout for much of the postseason with Caban and Morgan in charge, and with so much at stake, that’s likely to continue.
These two teams know each other well this season and historically. They know what each can offer pitching. Gasso has Maxwell, an experienced senior who transferred in the offseason to be part of a dynasty. White has Kavan, a freshman who showed poise all week in pursuit of the team’s first national championship. Both have deep relief corps. Both have strong offenses that never give up. One of them will make history.
