Oklahoma softball: Sooners stretch unbeaten streak to 35
By Chip Rouse
The more things change the more they stay the same. Another Big 12 series, another Oklahoma softball series sweep.
Kansas wat the latest victim of the top-ranked Oklahoma softball juggernaut. Sooner pitchers, with a stout OU defense behind them, held the Jayhawks to a combined three runs and 11 hits total in taking all three games at Marita Hynes Field over the weekend.
The three-game home sweep of the Jayhawks extended Oklahoma’s win streak to 35 consecutive games and 56 consecutive Big 12 series without a loss. The Sooners are now 28-0 to start the season to go along with their No. 1 ranking.
The Sooners continued to wield the heavy lumber, scoring a combined 30 runs on 28 hits, including seven home runs. Oklahoma leads the country in runs and home runs by a wide margin. The Sooners have cleared the fences 91 times already this season and have scored 338 times in 28 games, an average of over 12 runs per game.
Senior Jocelyn Alo hit her nation-leading 22nd home run of the season in OU’s 14-0 rout of Kansas in game one of the series, Tiare Jennings stroked her 16th home run and Kinzie Hansen her 15th and senior catcher Lynssie Elam left the yard two times in the same game.
The Sooners’ hit two more long balls in a 6-2 game two win, but the failed to hit one out of the yard in game three, a 10-1 OU win, for one of the few times this season.
Alo and Jennings, the top two hitters in the Big 12 again had a big weekend at the plate. The freshman Jennings was six for nine at the plate with six RBI and eight runs, while Alo had four hits in seven official at bats along with four RBI and two runs scored.
Shannon Saile, who has yet to surrender an earned run this season, picked up her eighth win of the season in game one of the series, going 6.0 innings and allowing just two hits with eight strikeouts and one walk.
Left-handed fifth-year starter Giselle Juarez started a pair of the games over the weekend. She pitched 6.0 innings in OU’s 6-2 win on Friday and came back the following day, going the first three innings without allowing a hit or a run. In the 6-2 win on Friday, Juarez gave up one run on four hits and struck out nine. The two wins give Juarez 10 for the season without a loss.
The Sooners are off to a 5-0 start in the Big 12 and have a one-game advantage over both Texas and Baylor. They open a three-game series with Baylor in Waco on Friday, but before that they play a midweek contest at Wichita State on Tuesday.