OU softball finds its spark, one win away from three-peat

OKLAHOMA CITY – It just wasn’t the usual OU softball team. Whether it was the weather delays or the magnitude of the moment, this wasn’t the usual No. 1 ranked team.

But it’s to Oklahoma’s credit that it can adjust and rebound. There’s still time to find that spark, and the Sooners did just that in a 5-0 victory against Florida State in Game 1 of the Women’s College World Series championship series.

Game 2 is 6:30 p.m. Thursday on ESPN. The Sooners are one win away from back-to-back-to-back national championships.

You might get the Sooners once, but they keep coming. And once they found their stride, that was the team head coach Patty Gasso recognized.

“I think the moment got big. For the first time in a long time, they started thinking what is happening right now,” Gasso said. “Mistakes, which we don’t do. We don’t do that. You could see by the way they were swinging or they were frozen that they weren’t ready for it. They were off.”

There was a 64-minute lightning delay to begin the game. Then with one out in the bottom of the first, there was another 43-minute delay. OU hadn’t found any answers with just one hit through the first three innings.

There are so many dynamic playmakers, however, that it just takes one. On Wednesday night at USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium, it was Jordy Bahl pitching. It was Kinzie Hansen hitting and give another assist to Bahl and her ability as a runner.

Searching for a spark, they delivered. That success allowed the team to find its footing and put away the Seminoles. The Sooners are now 60-1 overall, on a 52-game winning streak and have put FSU on the brink of elimination.

It’s pure coincidence that it was Hansen and Bahl because those two weren’t themselves in the 2022 WCWS championship run. Bahl was dealing with an arm injury. Hansen fought through a knee injury most of the season but couldn’t produce the way she knows.

There’s no questioning Bahl at this point, and Hansen has made 2023 a quasi-redemption story of her own.

“It’s obviously my performance has been well, but the best part about it is being able to be with them celebrating all of the great things that are going on,” Hansen said. “The team consistently with celebrations in the dugout, it’s always so joyful all the time.

“Being able to be alongside them through their successes, that’s my favorite part of it all, being able to stand hand-in-hand united with them through anything that’s thrown at us.”

It was that combo that got it going in the fourth. It started with Bahl shutting down FSU in the circle. And then it was time for her to show her wheels.

Gasso has said repeatedly Bahl is the fastest player on the team. Gasso let Bahl loose after Haley Lee got hit by a pitch.

It was time for Hansen to bring Bahl home as a pinch runner, which Hansen did with an RBI double in the gap.

Hansen said: “When Jordy went in to pinch run, in my mind I was like, if I get the ball in the gap, we’re going to be 1-0. Jordy has wheels. She runs circles around us at practice sometimes. She strikes us out, too.”

Alyssa Brito followed with an RBI single to bring home Hansen, and OU was able to score another on an error in the frame.

You give Bahl a three-run lead, with the way she’s pitching, good luck.

“She wants the ball like nobody’s business. Not that we don’t have faith in our others,” Gasso said. “It’s just she is like a very, very hot pitcher right now. She’s throwing the best she has all season right now. You want to take advantage of that without running her too hard where she’s going to run out of gas.

“But she is just feeling it right now.”

Bahl is now 4-0 in the WCWS and hasn’t allowed a run in 21.2 innings. She went seven innings Wednesday, allowing two hits with one walk and 10 strikeouts on just 97 pitches.

Florida State elected to sit star pitcher Kathryn Sandercock. That simply has not been the way Gasso has attacked this WCWS, knowing Bahl is ready and can deliver.

“They are very, very good top to bottom in everything that they do,” Gasso said. “It was a matter of like we’ve got to get our feet on the ground. Jordy was the right matchup for this first game just to kind of allow us to get our feet on the ground.”

Hansen added another RBI single as did Tiare Jennings to put OU a victory away from history. The Sooners are gunning to become just the second team ever to win three straight national championships. They would join UCLA who accomplished the feat from 1988-90.

One win away.