Oklahoma softball one win away from record-tying WCWS three-peat

Jordy Bahl shut down another WCWS opponent and the Oklahoma offense woke up after three scoreless innings as the Sooners defeated Florida State 5-0 in Game 1 of the best-of-three Women’s College World Series championship series.

The Sooners earned their 60th win of the season with just a single loss and now need just one more win to repeat for a third straight year as national champions. In addition to the coveted WCWS championship, which would be the team’s seventh overall and sixth in the past 11 seasons, one more WCWS victory would complete the best single-season record in Division I college softball history.

It was not a typical start to the game for the No. 1 overall seed Sooner team. Game 1 of the WCWS championship series was delayed over an hour at the start because of threatening lightning in the area. Then, after OU starter Jordy Bahl retired Florida State in order in the top half of the first inning, the game was interrupted a second time by weather for another 45 minutes.

It was just after 9 p.m. by the time Oklahoma came to bat for the first time in the game. By the time the bottom half of the fourth inning came around the Sooner line score in the game read like a misprint: 0 runs, 1 hit and 2 errors.

The nation’s No. 1 defensive team, with just 16 errors in 60 games all season, had committed two uncharacteristic fielding mistakes in just four innings, and college softball’s best-hitting team had mustered just one hit off of a backup Florida State starting pitcher. Rylie Boone, the No. 9 hitter in the high-powered Sooner lineup, had the only OU hit to that point off of FSU’s Mack Leonard, a double in the third inning.

The breakthrough came in the OU fourth, with a double by Kinzie Hansen and singles by Alyssa Brito and Alynah Torres plating three runs to put the Sooners up 3-0. OU added single runs in the fifth and sixth to close out the scoring and give Oklahoma its 35th shutout win of 2023, the most by any team this season.

The two teams will regroup and square off again tonight at 6:30 p.m. in Game 2 of the best-of-three championship series.

If Oklahoma is going to wrap things up in Game 2, the Sooners are going to have to get it done against Florida State’s best pitcher, All-American Kathryn Sandercock. The OU starter will likely be either Nicole May or Alex Storako. Storako got the win in Oklahoma’s 5-4 victory over the Seminoles earlier this season.

Game 3, if necessary, will be at 7 p.m. Friday. All games are being televised on ESPN.

Key takeaways from OU’s Game 1 WCWS champ series win over FSU

• Oklahoma has outscored its four WCWS opponents by the combined score of 20-2, including three shutouts.
• First-Team All-American Jordy Bahl has been the winning pitcher in all four of OU’s WCWS wins. The Sooner ace has not allowed a run in 20.2 innings pitched in the WCWS.
• Bahl allowed just four Florida State base runners the entire game. She struck out 10 and gave up just two hits, one walk and one hit batter.
• Coming into the championship series with Oklahoma, Florida State had averaged 5.3 runs per game, the most of any team in the WCWS.
• FSU chose not to start its All-American pitcher, Kathryn Sandercock, in Game 1 against the Sooners. The Seminole ace is sure to be in the circle for Game 2. She owns a season record of 28-3 with an ERA of 1.05, fourth best in the country.
• The Sooners came very close to ending Game 1 after five innings. Florida State left-fielder Kaley Mudge made a spectacular catch, reaching over the fence to take an apparent home-run blast away from OU’s Haley Lee in the sixth inning that would have driven in three runs, made the score 8-0 and by rule would have ended the game.