Oklahoma softball: Sooners bury No. 4 Tennessee, advance to WCWS semifinals

Tiare Jennings and Kinzie Hansen hit home runs and Oklahoma softball pitching held dangerous Tennessee to just one hit as the Sooners stormed to a 9-0 run-rule win on Saturday in the winner’s bracket of the Women’s College World Series semifinals.

The win was the Sooners NCAA record 50th consecutive victory of the season and 58th overall with just one loss. OU now moves to the national semifinal round on Monday. In the history of the WCWS, 33 of the 39 teams who won their first two games went on to win national championships.

The run-rule win was the Sooners’ 28th of the season and also marked the first time Tennessee (50-9) has been shut out all season.

Jennings hit a three-run bomb in the second inning to open the Oklahoma scoring, and Hansen keyed a six-run fifth inning with a line-drive blast over the left-field wall.

All of the Oklahoma scoring came in just two innings as seven of the nine starters in the Sooner lineup scored runs and eight of nine reached base at least once in the game.

Jordy Bahl was brilliant again in the circle, working 3.2 innings, allowing no runs for a second straight game and allowing just one hit, a lead-off double by Tennessee Star Kiki Milloy to open the game, and striking out three. Bahl earned her second win in this WCWS (she started and finished the 2-0 win over Stanford) and her 20th of the season with just one loss.

Tennessee head coach Karen Weekly employed a curious strategy, opening the game with freshman pitcher Karlyn Pickens instead of one of their two outstanding starters, Ashley Rogers or Payton Gottshall, two of the best pitchers in the country with a combined record of 34-2 this season. Pickens lasted just 1.2 innings after giving up the three-run home run to Jennings to put the Sooners out in front early in the game.

Then Weekly brought in another freshman, Charli Orsini, who gave up the two-run long ball to Hansen. The Volunteers used two more relievers in the game but did not turn to either of their two big guns in the circle, ostensibly to save them for later on Sunday and potentially in the national semifinals on Monday.

OU head coach Patty Gasso pulled Bahl after 3.2 innings and brought in each of the three other Sooner starting pitchers (Alex Storako, Kiersten Deal and Nicole May to finish out the remaining 1.1 innings and get them involved in this year’s WCWS.

Whoever OU’s opponent will be on Monday, they will have to beat the Sooners twice to keep Oklahoma out of the championship series, which begins on Wednesday.