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Oklahoma softball: Sooners hold on to win another Big 12 Championship crown

By Chip Rouse

ST PETERSBURG, FL - APRIL 15: General view of the Phillies helmets prior to the Philadelphia Phillies taking on the Tampa Bay Rays on April 15, 2018 at Tropicana Field in St Petersburg, Florida. All players are wearing
ST PETERSBURG, FL - APRIL 15: General view of the Phillies helmets prior to the Philadelphia Phillies taking on the Tampa Bay Rays on April 15, 2018 at Tropicana Field in St Petersburg, Florida. All players are wearing /
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 A three-run home run by Oklahoma softball center fielder Nicole Pendley broke open a 2-1 game and sparked the Sooners to a 5-4 win over 17th-ranked Baylor and the Big 12 Championship.

The top-seeded Sooners recorded their 31st consecutive win over a Big 12 opponent and captured their second consecutive conference postseason title. Oklahoma has appeared in 10 Big 12 Softball Championships and come out on top in six of them.

Pendley drove in five of the six OU runs with a double in the first inning scoring two, and her three-run round-tripper in the third, provided the Sooners with what they needed for the victory, their 50th of the season to go with just three losses.

OU senior Paige Lowary pitched a complete game, limiting the Lady Bears to four runs on seven hits to earn the win, her eighth of the season with one loss. Her counterpart in the circle for Baylor, Gina Rodini, also went the distance and, for the most part, did an excellent job holding down the country’s No. 7 offense, limiting the explosive Sooner bats to only eight hits.

A throwing error on a routine ground ball by Baylor third baseman Goose McGlaun on what would have been the third out opened the door for Pendley’s two-run single in the first inning. Those two runs proved to be the difference. Otherwise, the outcome of the game might have been different.

Pendley was named the Most Valuable Player of the Big 12 Softball Championship. The Sooner senior was six for nine in her team’s three wins, including two home runs, nine RBI and a 1.444 slugging percentage.

Baylor cut the Oklahoma lead to one run, at 5-4, with a three-run sixth inning, but the Sooners added an insurance run in the home half of the sixth on a single by Sidney Romero that scored Eliyah Flores from second base.

Lowary put down the side in order in the Baylor seventh to close out the game.

The next action for the Sooners will be next weekend, when OU hosts the NCAA Norman Regional in the opening round of the NCAA Softball Championship. The Sooners are seeking a third consecutive appearance in the Women’s College World Series and a third consecutive national title.

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