Oklahoma went into its three-game series with LSU leading the nation with 433 total runs and averaging 12.4 runs per game. In the first two games of the series, however, the Sooners managed to score a total of just four times, something that hasn't happened in back-to-back games all season.
The No. 3 Sooners (34-3, 8-1) scratched out a 3-2 win in extra innings to win the series opener at Tiger Park in Baton Rouge, but had to score twice in the seventh inning to avoid a shutout and send the game into extra frames.
Oklahoma also came dangerously close to being shut out on Saturday. The Tigers rebounded in the middle game of the series behind a masterful, complete-game pitching performance by ace Jayden Heavener. It had been seven years since a Sooner softball team has been held scoreless in a game. OU lost 1-0 to Alabama in the 2019 Women's College World Series. The last time Oklahoma was shut out in a regular-season game was in 2018 in a 4-0 loss to then-No. 4 Oregon.
Heavener, who also worked an inning in the Tigers' loss on Friday, shut down the Oklahoma bats on Saturday afternoon, yielding just one run, which the Sooners managed to scratch out in the final inning. The LSU ace gave up a total of two hits, and just one in the first six innings, in leading No. 20 LSU (23-12, 4-8) to a 3-1 victory to even the series at a game apiece. The LSU sophomore left-hander faced a total of 27 Oklahoma batters, just six over the minimum, in going the distance to earn her eighth win of the season to go with six losses.
Oklahoma rebounded from the setback on Saturday and back-to-back games without a ball hit out of the yard, scoring four runs in the top half of the first inning on Sunday with three of the Sooners' first four hitters blasting long home runs. The 4-0 advantage in the opening inning equaled OU's run total for the first two games.
The Sooners went on to win Sunday's rubber game of the series 8-4, powered by four home runs and a solid complete-game pitching performance by Miali Guachino, to take the series two games to one.
The loss on Saturday not only snapped a 22-game Oklahoma winning streak, but also was just the first time this season that the Sooners scored as few as one run in a game. OU's two hits in the 3-1 loss on Saturday was also a new low for the season for a Sooner team that has averaged a nation-best 12 hits a game through 37 games.
Despite suffering just its third loss of the season on Saturday, Oklahoma actually moved up two spots to No. 3 this week in the Softball America Top 25 rankings.
The Sooners are back in action on Tuesday, opening a four-game homestand against Wichita State (19-13). The Kentucky Wildcats (21-16, 1-11) are later in the week for a three-game SEC series on Thursday-Saturday.
3 telling takeaways from Oklahoma softball's close series win over LSU
1. Nothing is going to be easy for Oklahoma from here on out
Oklahoma is 8-1 in conference play and tied with Texas for the top spot in the conference standings, but the series at LSU proved that wins are not going to come easy for the Sooners in their remaining five regular-season conference series. In the Sooners' three SEC series so far this season, they have faced two of the three worst teams in the conference (Auburn and Ole Miss), based on the current standings, and LSU, whose current 4-8 league record places it 10th in the standings.
Four of the Sooners' remaining five conference series are against teams ranked in the latest Softball America poll. After the Kentucky series at home at Love's Field this weekend, Oklahoma will play at No. 1 Texas, against No. 6 Arkansas and No. 10 Georgia, and at No. 17 Texas A&M to finish out the regular season. That is a daunting gauntlet straight ahead and for certain OU's most challenging stretch of the season.
2. LSU out-homers Oklahoma in the series
Oklahoma entered the LSU series leading all of college softball with an unimaginable 129 home runs in just 33 games. To put that number into perspective, that was 59 more than the next closest team (Florida with 70). LSU, on the other hand, came into the OU series having hit a team total of 26 home runs.
The Sooners had homered in 33 of 34 games entering the LSU series, with six Oklahoma players having hit double-digit home runs, including the nation-leader, Kendall Wells, with 25. LSU pitchers kept the OU hitters in the park the first two games in the series, but four different Sooners slammed balls over the fence on Sunday, accounting for seven of Oklahoma's eight runs.
Despite the huge disparity in team home runs by the two teams this season, LSU managed to out-homer the Sooners in the series five to four. Tiger shortstop Kylee Edwards hit three of LSU's five round-trippers.
3. Pitcher Miali Guachino achieved a season-first for the Sooners
Miali Guachino, who transferred to Oklahoma this season from Ole Miss, pitched all seven innings of the Sooners' 8-4 win on Sunday. The sophomore right-hander allowed four runs on seven hits and struck out 11 in recording her 10th win of the season without a loss. The complete-game performance was the first by an Oklahoma starting pitcher this season. Her 146 total pitches was a season-high for both Guachino and the OU pitching staff.
Also of note from the LSU series
Kendall Wells hit one of Oklahoma's four home runs in Sunday's win. It was her 26th of the season, leaving her one away from tying the all-time NCAA record for a freshman. The Sooners now have 133 home runs for the season, which puts this team seventh in NCAA history in home runs in a single season and just 28 away from tying the all-time season record of 161 held by the 2021 Oklahoma team.