Sooner Softball in Its Familiar Top Spot in Big 12 Race
By Chip Rouse
It’s the same old song for Sooner softball, and Oklahoma fans are enjoying the music.
And why shouldn’t they? It has been five seasons since someone moved Oklahoma out of the top spot in the league standings in Big 12 softball.
The OU women swept the three-game series over their Big 12 opponent for a second straight weekend, disposing of Red River rival Texas in three games won by a combined margin of five runs.
It was Oklahoma’s seventh straight win over the hated Longhorns. The Sooners have won 11 of the last dozen games between the two longtime rivals.
The Sooners, 34-7 and ranked No. 9 in the latest ESPN/USA Softball Collegiate Top 25, are now 9-1, including series wins over Kansas and Baylor, the two teams that follow Oklahoma in the conference standings. Their lead over second-place Kansas has swelled to three games with eight league games remaining.
“We are just going in one game at a time and working to win every game we play.” —Patty Gasso, Sooner head coach
For the second time this season, Oklahoma has put together a nine-game winning streak, and has won 16 of its last 17 games.
When asked if her team might be guilty of looking ahead with such a sizeable lead over Kansas, the Sooners nearest challenger, head coach Patty Gasso old the OU Daily, the University of Oklahoma student publication:
“I don’t think we’re looking ahead,” she said. “We’re just going in one game at a time and working hard to win every game we play.”
The Sooners last three Big 12 series in 2016 are against teams (Iowa State, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State that have a combined record of eight wins and 17 losses.
Looking at the overall season stats of the seven Big 12 schools that play softball, it is easy to comprehend how the Sooners are where they are in the conference standings. OU leads the Big 12 in hitting with a team average of .358, over 40 points higher than the next closest team (Baylor at .313). The Sooners are the league leaders in hits, home runs and runs scored, averaging just over seven runs per game.
The Sooners feature three players in the top 10 in the Big 12 in hitting, led by freshman first baseman Shay Knighton, who is hitting .411 through all games, with nine home runs and 38 runs batted in.
In the pitching circle, Oklahoma starter Paige Parker is the only Big 12 pitcher with 20 wins (20-3), and combined with freshman Jayden Chestnut the two Sooner pitchers are 26-6. Parker is tied for the league lead in ERA at 1.85 in 136 innings. In her two seasons at Oklahoma, Parker has a won-lost record of 48-10.
The best teams in the conference generally are among the best in defense, and that rings true for Oklahoma this season. The Sooners have made a league-low 19 errors in 2016 and sport a team fielding average of .982, best in the Big 12. Oklahoma committed only 30 errors all of last season.
The Sooners are 15-2 at home this season and are unbeaten in five games away from home. OU’s next Big 12 foe is against Iowa State on the road. The Cyclones are 0-6 so far against Big 12 teams.
Oklahoma is 25-0 in its last 25 games against Iowa State. The Sooners have not lost to the Cyclones in softball since 2006, when Iowa State won two of three games over Oklahoma in a series played in Ames, where the Sooners will be April 29 through May 1.