OU squanders the chance, OSU capitalizes and takes Bedlam series

Sometimes, it really can be that simple when it comes to OU softball. If the Sooners get the timely hits, it’s an easy victory.

If they don’t? They gotta scratch and claw like everybody else. But this weekend, OU has met its match in Oklahoma State. It’s the Cowgirls coming up with the big hits.

Again and again, and it’s a Bedlam series victory for OSU before we even get to Sunday. Sparked by a five-run top of the sixth, OSU downed OU 6-2 on Saturday afternoon at Love’s Field.

“We’re just not playing complete games,” head coach Patty Gasso said. “We get out early and then we just don’t — there’s places in the game where the pitchers are very very good and then it’ll collapse. Our defense can do the same at times. Our offense is doing the same. There’s shining lights and then it just fades and we’re just not playing complete games.

“We’ve got to clean it up. We’re facing a very good team that’s got very good pitching. Very confident and they’ve always come after us and they’ve got us. So we give them credit. We don’t make excuses whatsoever. Know what we have to do. We just need time to figure it out to get it done and we don’t have a lot of time left. So that is the goal to find where we need to go and how to get there. 

It is the first home series loss for OU since 2006 against Texas. And it is the first OSU series victory at OU since 1993.

The game featured a three-hour, 24-minute rain delay. And once we got back to action, there wasn’t much that separated the two teams through the initial innings.

Let’s get right to it. The bottom of the fifth and top of the sixth.

The game tied 1-1, and OU had bases loaded with one out, thanks to an OSU error. Years past? The Sooners put up a crooked number, separate on the scoreboard.

Here? All OU could earn was an RBI walk by Alynah Torres. Lexi Kilfoyl bounced back with two strikeouts, and OSU came to pick her up in the sixth.

Nicole May had allowed one run in in five innings, but at 95 pitches? She didn’t have much left in the sixth. May allowed back-to-back solo home runs, leading to Kelly Maxwell coming in.

And Maxwell hasn’t been nearly as effective in relief as a starter. Maxwell gave up a three-run bomb to Jilyen Poullard that quieted the 4,534 in attendance.

There will be questions about May going into the sixth inning. But it’s something Gasso isn’t second-guessing, not at all.

“No. She threw really well,” Gasso said. “We need Nicole May and Nicole May has taken a lot of criticism. And I know that she feels it but today she looked different. She started well. It was Nicole May, that was Nicole May.

“It’s hard to sustain a full game as a pitcher, that’s why you don’t see it very often but as long as she was feeling good, we wanted to do it. We just wanted to do it. So we’re learning things about our pitching staff that we need to have nailed down going into postseason so if we have to figure it out now, it’s better to figure out now than when your season could be ending.

“I loved what Karlie Keeney has been doing. She comes in and she just brings a different kind of energy, not that the others don’t but just there’s a different kind of confidence in her look and her style that is really refreshing. We just can’t get everything working together the way we need to right now.”

The OU loss combined with the Texas win means the Sooners will not be the No. 1 seed in next week’s Big 12 Tournament.

Head coach Patty Gasso has challenged her team all the last month. Show everybody what you’re made of. Sunday is a chance to salvage something in Bedlam and be the No. 2 seed.

Closing it up

Final game. No. 2 OU (45-6 overall, 21-5 Big 12) needs a win vs. OSU to maintain the No. 2 seed. If OSU sweeps Bedlam, the Sooners move to the No. 3 seed in the Big 12 Tournament.