Oklahoma softball: Sooners keep 4 streaks alive with win over Texas
By Chip Rouse
If anyone is going to hang another loss on the top-ranked Oklahoma softball team before the end of the regular season, it would appear this weekend might present the best opportunity.
With apologies to Oklahoma State, Texas is the Sooners’ biggest rival, and that is where Oklahoma is this weekend, taking on arguably the best team it will face in the Big 12 this season (apologies again to Oklahoma State).
The Sooners rolled into Austin fueled by the momentum of multiple double-digit streaks and a No. 1 ranking. All of that remained firmly in place after Oklahoma claimed a 3-1 victory on Thursday night in game one of the three-game Easter weekend series.
If the Lady Longhorns, ranked No. 10 in the current USA Softball Collegiate Top 25, are going to play the spoiler role against their visiting archrival, they have just two more opportunities to get the job done.
Oklahoma southpaw starter Giselle Juarez extended her personal winning streak to 17 games without a loss this season, allowing just one run on five hits and striking out 10 in a complete-game victory. Juarez pitched a brilliant game. It was the sixth time this season she has reached double digits in strikeouts. her 1.48 ERA is the fourth best in the Big 12, and she is second in strikeouts (148) to the Texas starter in the game, Miranda Elish.
Elish also pitched a complete game, giving up eight hits and striking out five OU hitters. She now has a league-leading 162 punch-outs this season.
The game was scoreless until the fourth inning, when the Big 12’s leading hitter, OU’s Sydney Romero, stroked a two-run single to put the Sooners ahead. The score remained 2-0 until the seventh inning. OU added an insurance run in its half of the seventh, and the Longhorns scored their only run in the game in their last at bat, in the bottom half of the inning, on a wild pitch by Juarez.
The win extended Oklahoma’s consecutive win streak to 29, the longest active streak in the country and the third longest in OU softball history. It also was the Sooners’ 35th consecutive win against a Big 12 opponent. Oklahoma has not lost to a Big 12 team since suffering a 4-3 loss to Baylor on April 23, 2017.
The Sooners also have a long win streak going against Texas. OU has won the last 16 meetings between the two teams, with games two and three scheduled for Friday evening and Saturday afternoon at McCombs Field in Austin.