OU softball earns sweep of Baylor with Jennings' walk-off HR
OU softball earns sweep of Baylor with Jennings' walk-off HR
After run-ruling Baylor twice this past weekend, No. 1 Oklahoma had to dig deep for a third victory in their Big 12 opener.
NORMAN, Okla. — Following a rare seven-inning game for top-ranked Oklahoma, sophomore Tiare Jennings said she never questioned her confidence. The Sooners’ Sunday starter, Hope Trautwein, also admitted she didn’t feel much pressure in the circle.
The players and their coach, Patty Gasso, spent much of their postgame news conference giving praise to Baylor, which almost handed OU its first loss of the season.
Almost.
Because Trautwein struck out 13 and kept the Bears to one hit and Jennings blasted a walk-off, three-run homer to center field, the Sooners (29-0) won 3-1 Sunday to sweep their first Big 12 series.
It was a dramatic ending to an otherwise run-of-the-mill weekend. The Sooners beat Baylor 9-1 in five innings on Friday and 8-0 in five frames the next day.
I sometimes wonder if Gasso prefers days like Sunday over the routs her team usually delivers.
So, I asked her.
“I will be honest with you,” she replied, “we don't want to run-rule everybody. Because right now, when we count it up, our pitching staff is missing over 40 innings. That's a lot of innings that they need to pitch to get work. So, it's nice to feel it, but it just kind of hurts in some other ways as well.
“We needed this more than anything you could ever imagine. We're athletic enough to find ways to win. If we would have lost this game, it would not have hurt us but more help us, and I knew that. So, as a coach, we're going in not feeling the pressure of we must win this game.
“The challenge is what we need.”
More takeaways from OU’s sweep of Baylor this weekend:
• Trautwein caps solid weekend in the circle: It’s always a risk taking a promising player from a smaller conference and bringing them into a power league, like the Big 12. But Hope Trautwein, who transferred from North Texas to OU this past offseason, has been all reward for Gasso’s pitching staff.
She was superb on Sunday, winning her eighth game this season and saving OU’s best pitching performance of the weekend for last.
Jordy Bahl was terrific on Friday, striking out eight and allowing just two hits and one run in her Big 12 debut. OU won 9-1.
Then Nicole May struck out five, allowed four hits but kept the Bears off the board to help OU win 8-0 on Saturday.
Trautwein had to go all seven but never seemed fazed by the adversity.
“The top of their lineup is tough. They're tough outs, they swing on all planes,” Trautwein said. “Really it was trusting my stuff and trusting coach [Jennifer] Rocha to call pitches that I'm confident in. And I mean, we practice pressure like this all the time. So, it was pressure, yes. But it was something that I've been able to come out on top of and so I wasn't really sweating it too much.
“I was sweating,” she continued matter of factly, “but I wasn't really sweating.”
• Clutch moment for Hansen: OU catcher Kinzie Hansen has been dealing with a knee bruise, which has kept her out of the Sooners’ lineup lately.
Gasso recognized Lynnsie Elam has stepped up in a major way to fill the void of one of college softball’s best hitters. But Hansen had her moment Sunday afternoon, getting on base late in the seventh inning when the Sooners were lacking offensive momentum.
“Is she 100%? Not quite,” Gasso said of Hansen. “Offensively, though, I feel very good about her. It's hard to beat Kinzie Hanson, and I just felt like it was worth the opportunity to give her something.”
Hansen enjoyed just one at-bat Sunday but drilled a single to right field with OU trailing 1-0 and down to its final out. Makenzie Donihoo followed up Hansen's clutch hit with a single of her own. Jennings, who as I mentioned wasn’t feeling too shaky in a pressure-packed moment, then plated the two with her walk-off home run.
“I think our mentality was the same pretty much the whole game,” Jennings said. “Credit to [Baylor pitcher Dariana] Orme. She threw a great game, but we were on top of it the whole game. Mentality-wise, we were in it the entire game.”
• Honoring a legend: You might have noticed the initials “JJ” on the right side of the visor Gasso wore on Sunday.
The letters were a tribute to Joan Joyce, who died Saturday at the age of 81.
“She was like the Babe Ruth of softball,” Gasso said. “Hitter. pitcher. LPGA professional golfer. Incredible athlete. … She brought so much life to the game.”
Yes, Joyce was an accomplished softball player and golfer. But she also played on the United States' national women's basketball team and played and coach volleyball.
Joyce recently picked up her 1,0000th win as a college softball coach, spending the last 28 years with Florida Atlantic as the program’s first and only skipper.
Gasso recognized Joyce was one of the greatest players in softball's history. Hard to argue with all the records Joyce set over her playing career. Even harder to argue, considering she struck out Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams in an exhibition in 1961.
She was that good.
• Quotable: I asked Gasso how she feels her team is handling adversity, compared to previous years, and this was her response:
“They are managing their feelings, their emotions and their at-bats very, very well. I like that. I like to see them doing that. It could be easy to walk up there and go down 1-2-3. If you're scared, if you're afraid that you're gonna lose, that's what it looks like. If you’re playing to win, you're battling like what you saw [Sunday] and that is the beauty of the ending.”
• Next: The Sooners are back at Marita Hynes Field at 6 p.m. Tuesday. OU hosts Wichita State before a two-game home set against Alabama-Birmingham on Friday and Saturday.