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Oklahoma softball: Numbers have gone Sooners way all season

By Chip Rouse

CONSUELO, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - AUGUST 20: A Close up of tattered baseballs and softballs the players use to practice with on August 20, 2003 in Consuelo, Dominican Republic. Consuelo, which has ten programs for youths to learn and play baseball, is about 50 miles east of Santo Domingo. Of the ten programs, two provide housing for the players. One of which is Latin Baseball Academy, which was set up ten months ago by Luis Silvestre, a taxi driver in the Bronx, New York. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
CONSUELO, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - AUGUST 20: A Close up of tattered baseballs and softballs the players use to practice with on August 20, 2003 in Consuelo, Dominican Republic. Consuelo, which has ten programs for youths to learn and play baseball, is about 50 miles east of Santo Domingo. Of the ten programs, two provide housing for the players. One of which is Latin Baseball Academy, which was set up ten months ago by Luis Silvestre, a taxi driver in the Bronx, New York. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) /
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Numbers have been on the side of Oklahoma softball all season long, and on Saturday the number ‘1″ paid off the most for the No. 1-seeded Sooners.

Related Story: Sooners hold on to win another Big 12 Softball Championship

One play proved to be the difference in Oklahoma’s 6-4 win over no. 3-seeded Baylor in the Big 12 Softball Championship game on Saturday. A two-out throwing error by Baylor third baseman Goose McGlaun extended the first inning and allowed OU to score two unearned runs. The next Sooner batter, Nicole Pendley, lashed a double off the right center field wall, driving in two runs to give Oklahoma an early 2-0 lead.

The number “5” also played a key contributing role in the Sooners’ win over Baylor. That represented the runs driven in by Pendley, who, in addition to her two-run double in the opening frame, knocked one out of the park in the third inning with two runners aboard. Those five runs were all the Sooners needed to record their 31 consecutive win over a Big 12 opponent and 12th victory over Baylor in the last 13 games.

Pendley was named Most Outstanding Player of the Big 12 Softball Championship and was one of seven Sooners named to the All-Tournament Team.

Here are some other numbers that mattered from the Big 12 Softball Championship game:

1 – Paige Lowary was the winning pitcher in the game, her eighth of the season with one loss, but her first complete game.

3 – This is the third time Oklahoma has won both the Big 12 regular-season title and the postseason conference championship in the same season.

4 – Both starting pitchers (Paige Lowary for Oklahoma and Gia Rodoni of Baylor) went the distance, both allowing four earned runs. It was the two unearned Oklahoma runs in the first inning that tilted the game in the Sooners’ favor.

9 – Nicole Pendley had nine RBI in OU’s three games in the Big 12 Softball Championship. Her slugging percentage for the three games was 1.444.

13 – Pendley’s third-inning home run was her 13th of the season.

15 – OU junior first baseman Shay Knighton recorded 15 putouts at first base. That was 15 of the 21 total in the game for the Sooners.

15 – Oklahoma used 15 players in the game, compared to 12 by Baylor.

71 – Seventy-one of Paige Lowary’s 101 pitches in the game, or 70 percent, were strikes.

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