Oklahoma softball: No, 1 Sooners sweep Washington, secure spot in WCWS
By Chip Rouse
The top-seeded Oklahoma softball team scored in every inning and eliminated Washington with a 9-1 run-rule victory in the Norman Super Regional on Saturday.
With the victory, the Sooners recorded their 50th win of the season with just two losses and are headed 15 minutes up the road to Oklahoma City and their 14th WCWS appearance and fifth in a row.
Leading 4-1 after three innings, Oklahoma scored three more times in the top half of the fourth on a pair of home runs by Jocelyn Alo and Kinzie Hansen off Washington All-American pitcher Gabbie Plain to break the game wide open and take a commanding 7-1 advantage in the best-of-three Super Regional.
The Sooners slugged three home runs in the game, increasing their nation-best total to 146 for the season. In addition to Alo and Hansen, senior third baseman Jana Johns cleared the fence with a two-run blast in the third inning.
Not to be overshadowed, OU starting pitcher Shannon Saile became the second Sooner pitcher to go the distance in as many days, allowing just one run on four hits over 5.0 innings while striking out five and awarding just one base on balls. It was Saile’s 17th win of the season with no losses.
Plain pitched four four of the five innings for the Lady Huskies, although Washington head coach Heather Tarr pulled her for a relief pitcher in the third inning. She returned in the fourth and finished the game, but still gave up a season-high seven runs on 10 hits.
The nation-leader in strikeouts this season, Plain put down four Sooners on strikes, one fewer than Saile, but she also walked three batters, three of those coming in succession in the OU second, allowing a run to score. Plain had not allowed more than five runs in a game all season, and that was to Michigan a week ago in the Seattle Regional.
Washington managed just seven base runners in the game off of Saile, the same number as Oklahoma left on base.
Like they have all season long, the Sooners used their deep, offensive-minded lineup and the long
ball to post their 34th run-rule victory in 52 games.
Alo was the Oklahoma offensive leader in the two-game sweep over the Pac-12 runners-up and No. 6 team in the country, based on the latest USA Softball/ESPN.com national rankings. Alo was four-for-five in the two games with a pair of home runs (her 29th and 30th of the season, tying an NCAA single-season record) and four runs batted in.
Oklahoma has advanced to the Super Regionals in each of the last 11 seasons (the NCAA Championship was not held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Sooner have now won nine Super Regional championships, including five straight.
The Sooners advance to the 2021 WCWS at ASA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium as the No. 1 seed and will play the winner of the Missouri-James Madison Super Regional as their opening-round opponent on Thursday next week.