It all comes down to one game, winner take all, for the 2021 Big 12 championship, a title Oklahoma softball has owned for the past eight seasons.
Oklahoma has a half-game lead heading into a Bedlam series finale on Sunday. The winner will capture the Big 12 crown and earn the No. 1 seed heading into the Big 12 Championship next week.
Top-ranked Oklahoma rebounded from its second loss of the season the day before, holding off a late threat by No. 7 Oklahoma State to post a 6-4 victory on Saturday. Before the loss on Friday, OU had won 24 consecutive games over its in-state rival.
The win moved the Sooners (41-2, 15-1) back into first place in the Big 12 standings with the rubber game in the series and in the 2021 regular season slated for Sunday.
The 6-4 final score was the same as on Friday, but with a different result and minus the home runs that showered out Oklahoma State’s Cowgirl Stadium in Stillwater the night before.
Oklahoma got a brilliant pitching performance from senior Shannon Saile, who started the game and pitched into the seventh inning before requiring relief help from Olivia Rains and true freshman Nicole May to finally close the door on a serious seventh-inning threat by the Cowgirls.
Saile allowed four runs on four hits, struck out six and walked four batters in 6.0 innings and was credited with her 14th win of the season without a loss. Kelly Maxwell of Oklahoma State was charged with the loss. She is now 14-3 on the season.
Oklahoma collected a dozen hits off of two OSU pitchers. Jocelyn Alo, Jayda Coleman and Lynnsie Elam combined for half of the Sooners 12 hits. Fifth-year senior Nicole Mendes accounted for the only home run in the game, a solo shot in the sixth, giving OU a 5-2 lead.
The Sooners had opened up a 6-2 advantage in the top half of the seventh on a run-scoring triple by pinch hitter Grace Green. But the Cowgirls refused to give up, loading the bases in the bottom half of the seventh with no outs.
OU head coach Patty Gasso was ejected from the game in the sixth inning for arguing a call.
A home run by OSU’s Karli Petty leading off the bottom half of the seventh brought the Cowgirls within three and a sacrifice fly by Alysen Febrey scored Chelsea Alexander with OSU’s fourth run. But May came on in relief of Rains and got a fly out and a strikeout, leaving two Cowgirls stranded on the bases and finishing off the OU win.
The two teams will battle again beginning at 11 a.m CT on Sunday. The game will be televised nationally on ESPNU.