Oklahoma softball: Sooner pitching hurls scoreless hat trick at Red Raiders

You can only keep a sleeping giant down for so long. The nation-best Oklahoma softball offense, held at bay over the previous two games in the series, was back on track on Saturday, blasting three home runs in a 7-0 shutout and a series sweep over visiting Texas Tech.

The Sooners, now 36-1 for the year, scored two runs in each of the first three innings and once more in the fourth, but the two first-inning tallies were all they would need. Haley Lee, the Arizona State transfer was the star of the game launching a pair of home runs, in the second and fourth innings, to raise her team-leading total to 11 this season.

Junior right-hander Nicole May improved her Big 12-leading earned run average, allowing no runs on just two hits with eight strikeouts in 5.1 innings. She has allowed only four earned runs in 11 starts this season and is a perfect 11-0 for the season.

Lee and Alynah Torres combined for five of OU’s 11 hits in the game (Lee going two-for-three with three RBI and two runs; Torres three-for-four at the plate and a couple of runs scored.

Texas Tech, which entered the three-game series with the Sooners having averaged over six runs per game, failed to score in the series and only had nine total hits, three in each game, underscoring the total dominance of the OU pitching performance in the series.

In an attempt to slow down the potent Oklahoma offense, Texas Tech went with a strategy of going with a different pitcher in every inning in Game 1 on Thursday, making it difficult to adjust to one pitching style. I worked, with the Sooners scoring just three times on three hits after averaging a nation-best nearly nine runs a game.

Fortunately, three runs was all Oklahoma would need to record the win as a result of a brilliant, complete-game performance in the circle by OU starter Alex Storako. Jordy Bahl was the Sooner pitching assassin in the second game of the series, striking out a dozen Red Raider hitters and allowing just one hit.

To Texas Tech’s credit, this was the first weekend since the 2023 season started that Oklahoma did not score in double digits at least once and did not record at least one run-rule victory.

Oklahoma has now won 28 consecutive games, the longest active win streak in the country, and has not lost a series against a Big 12 opponent in 69 consecutive series.