Oklahoma softball: Two Big 12 heavyweights go at it with 1st place on line
By Chip Rouse
On a weekend in which a couple of Sooner programs are competing for national championships, Oklahoma softball has a Red River Showdown with Texas for sole possession of Big 12 leadership.
Both teams have identical 6-0 records and a share of first place in the Big 12 standings as the No. 1-ranked Sooners host No. 7 Texas in a three-game weekend series at Marita Hynes Field in Norman. Both the Sooners and the Longhorns own double-digit winning streaks, so something is bound to give in this three-game heavyweight prize fight between two heated rivals.
Texas is riding a 14-game active win streak, but that is far short of Oklahoma’s NCAA-best 37-game winning streak that dates back to the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. A three-game sweep of the Longhorns this weekend would leave them one shy of matching the longest win streak in OU softball history set by the 2019 team.
The Sooners’ 30-0 start to the 2021 season is the best in program history, and they look to add to it this weekend. Oklahoma is the only remaining unbeaten team in the country, but Texas has lost just three times in 33 outings this season, so the Sooners will face their biggest challenge of the season against the rival Longhorns.
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Friday’s game starts at 6 p.m. CT and is only available on SoonerSports.tv. On Saturday and Sunday, however, the games will be broadcast nationally on ESPN2 (3 p.m. Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday).
Five things for fans to know about the OU-Texas softball showdown
- Oklahoma leads the country in six team offensive categories: batting average (.453), on-base percentage (.529), slugging percentage (.877), home runs (93), home runs per game (3.10) and runs (357, 11.9 per game). Texas ranks second in the country behind Oklahoma in team batting average (.379) and is fifth nationally in home runs (58).
- OU boast the top four individual batting averages in the country: Jocelyn Alo (.537), Jayda Coleman (.524), Tiare Jennings (.510) and Kinzie Hansen (.506). Alo is a senior, Hansen a sophomore and Jennings and Coleman are true freshmen.
- The eight-time defending regular season-champion Sooners have won 49 consecutive Big 12 games and have not lost a conference series in 56 consecutive series (52-0-4). OU has won 18 consecutive games versus Texas, including the last seven played in Norman.
- The Oklahoma pitching staff has thrown two perfect games, one no-hitter and have given up just one hit in nine other games this season. Sooner pitchers have a collective 1.37 ERA and has allowed 39 runs in 30 games.
- The Sooners have won 22 of their 30 games by run-rule and 17 have been shutouts, including one stretch when they failed to yield a run in four straight games.