Oklahoma softball: Sooners sensational season ends in WCWS loss to UCLA
By Chip Rouse
The 2019 Oklahoma softball season came to a disappointing close on Tuesday in a 5-4 loss to No. 2-seeded UCLA.
The good news for Oklahoma fans: it was a much closer game than on Monday night. The bad news: It still wasn’t good enough to prevent UCLA (56-6) from winning its 12th Women’s College World Series championship.
The Sooners fought hard and made a game of it, unlike the previous night, but the brutal reality is, UCLA was a team of destiny and was clearly the better team in this series, hammering eight home runs in successive days. The Bruins 10 home runs in this year’s Women’s College World Series was the third most in WCWS history.
With UCLA leading 4-3 and the Sooners down to their final out in the top half of the seventh inning, senior Shay Knighton hit a dramatic home run, her 11th of the season, to tie the score and give OU life.
The Sooner reprieve was short-lived, however, as Kinsley Washington, the eighth hitter in the Bruin lineup, lined a single to left with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, scoring pinch runner Jacqui Probar from second with the winning run to sweep Oklahoma in the best-of-three series and win the national title.
UCLA put the rejuvenated Sooners on their heels early as the first two Bruin hitters in the bottom of the first went yard on Oklahoma starter “G” Juarez, handing UCLA a quick 2-0 advantage.
OU pulled within one on a solo home run by senior third baseman Sydney Romero in the third inning. UCLA responded with a run in the bottom half of the third, but the Sooners plated two more runs in the fourth on RBIs b seniors Fale Aviu and freshman Lynnsie Elam to draw even at 3-3.
UCLA regained the lead, 4-3, on a home run by Washington in the fifth inning. The first four UCLA runs were all the result of solo home runs off of Juarez.
Both starting pitchers survived several innings with runners on base in scoring position and went the distance. UCLA ace and National Collegiate Softball Player of the Year Rachel Garcia was able to outduel Oklahoma ace Juarez, with both pitchers throwing over 120 pitches. Garcia was credited with the win, her 28th of the season along with one loss. For Juarez (28-4), it was her third loss in five WCWS starts.
The Sooners answered the question of whether they had it in them to rebound from the embarrassment of Game I and fight hard to the very end. The endured a knockout punch in the very first inning and, unlike Game 1, showed the heart and fight of a champion and deserving of their top ranking.
But UCLA was better than Oklahoma in this series and deserved to take home the national championship season.
The Sooners dug themselves a deep hole in losing Game 1 of the series, and just weren’t able to get over the hump. But losing the national championship to UCLA should not take away from an outstanding softball season by this group of seniors. OU finishes with a 57-6 record.
It’s unfortunate that the five OU seniors on the roster could not finish out their careers with a WCWS title, but they were still able to win two national championships in their four years at OU, and that is an accomplishment most college players can only dream of.