Oklahoma softball: Sooners will have to wait until NCAA Regionals to reach 50 wins

Oklahoma softball was won and done in this year’s Big 12 Championship.

The Sooners were well on their way to a fourth consecutive championship in the conference’s postseason tournament with an 8-0 run-rule victory over No. 4 seed Texas Tech and a 5-0 lead over Kansas after three innings. Maybe…or maybe not. That’s because the tournament was cancelled after just six games because of bad weather, and there will not be a tournament champion crowned this year.

The nation’s No. 1-ranked team will have to wait at least another year to win a seventh Big 12 tournament championship.

The sky opened up in the top of the fourth inning in Friday night’s game with the Jayhawks, leaving the contest two innings short of becoming an official game. The game was halted at that point and ultimately suspended, with play to resume on Saturday.

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The weather conditions were still bad on Saturday, leaving the grounds at USA Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City unplayable for softball. As a result, Big 12 officials have decided to cancel the remainder of the championship for this year.

Giselle Juarez and Shannon Saile, both of whom transferred to OU after two seasons at Arizona State and Florida International, respectively, combined on a one-hit shutout of Texas Tech in the Sooners’ opening game on Friday. Jaurez, who the players refer to simply as “G,” started and pitched the first five innings, striking out 11 and issuing one walk. Saile pitched the final inning to close out the victory.

The Sooners opened the scoring with a pair of runs in the second inning and added three more in the third, the bit hit in the third coming on a two-run double by senior Shay Knighton. Knighton added another RBI, driving home freshman Grace Green with the game-ending eighth OU run with a single in the bottom of the sixth.

Juarez was credited with her Big 12-best 22nd win of the season without a loss. The win was OU’s 49th of the season and record 39th consecutive win, the longest single-season win streak in NCAA Division I softball history. In addition, it was the Sooners’ 23rd shutout of the season and 23rd victory by run rule.

Oklahoma got off to a quick start in its second game of the day, against Kansas, producing a run on back-to-back doubles by seniors Sydney Romero and Falepolima Aviu, the first two hitters in the OU lineup. The Sooners widened their advantage with four more runs in the second on four hits.

By not scoring a run against Oklahoma pitching in the first three innings on Friday, the Jayhawks had gone 22 innings in four games this season without scoring a run. The Sooners outscored Kansas 23-0 in sweeping three games over KU in mid-April.

This is the first time in the 24-year history of the Big 12 that a conference tournament has not been played out to completion. The automatic berth in the NCAA Softball Championship is typically awarded to the winner of the Big 12 postseason tournament. Because this year’s tournament was cancelled, the automatic NCAA tournament bid is being awarded to OU as the Big 12 regular-season champion