OU sweeps Texas to win 2nd straight WCWS title

OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma’s protection saved issues shut till the Sooners’ prolific offense got here to life late Thursday night time with a pair of backbreaking house runs to beat rival Texas 10-5 and declare its second consecutive nationwide championship.

The Sooners have now received six Girls’s School World Sequence underneath head coach Patty Gasso, together with 4 of the previous seven. The 2020 postseason was canceled due to COVID-19.

Oklahoma set a document with 17 house runs throughout the WCWS, breaking its personal mark of 15 from final season. It additionally set a document for complete runs scored throughout the WCWS with 64.

The query turned apparent even earlier than the confetti was shot into the night time sky to have a good time the win: Was this one of the best softball staff of all time? The squad led the nation in batting common, house runs and ERA. It misplaced solely three video games.

Whereas her teammates would not participate within the debate, Oklahoma slugger Jocelyn Alo was completely happy to provide her take.

“I might say with me being a senior,” she mentioned, “I feel that is one of the best staff.”

Gasso mentioned the reply was greatest left to others who need to break down the stats, however she wound up coughing up an opinion anyway.

“I may rank them very, very excessive, if not the very best,” she mentioned, “as a result of every little thing they do seems really easy to me, and so they do it so quick.”

It definitely performed out that manner within the deciding sport towards Texas, which jumped out to a 2-0 lead within the first inning and held Oklahoma scoreless till the fourth inning, when the hits began coming in bunches.

Oklahoma heart fielder Jayda Coleman helped hold the rating shut early when she reached over the fence and introduced again a would-be two-run homer within the prime of the primary. To not be outdone, Sooners shortstop Grace Lyons had her personal good second within the discipline later when she plucked a floor ball deep within the gap to her proper, dropped to 1 knee and flicked it to second base the place Tiare Jennings tapped the bag and threw to first to finish the double play.

Then, after scratching collectively two runs and tying the sport within the fourth, Oklahoma’s bats lastly got here alive. An Alyssa Brito double down the left discipline line gave the Sooners a one-run lead. 4 pitches later, Kinzie Hansen hit a three-run homer over the left discipline fence to interrupt the sport open. It was Hansen’s first house run since April 16.

After a Jennings sacrifice fly within the prime of the sixth, Lyons hit a three-run homer to increase the result in eight.

“Our pitching with Jordy [Bahl] was hanging on, however the protection is what actually created this momentum for us time and again till we may discover a method to get on the board,” Gasso mentioned. “As soon as we did, it simply began to open up. Simply well timed hitting, clutch hitting after we wanted it.”

Alo, the all-time chief in profession house runs, had a uncommon night time during which she did not ship a ball over the fence or drive in a single run.

Throughout a 16-1 blowout in Sport 1 of the championship collection, Alo hit two house runs to deliver her complete to 5 for the WCWS.

A fifth-year senior, Alo will play professionally however has not mentioned whether or not that might be within the Girls’s Skilled Fastpitch league or Athletes Limitless, the place she was drafted No. 1 general in Might.

She ends her closing season with a .515 batting common, 34 house runs and 85 RBIs.

“Man, she loves the Sooners,” Gasso mentioned of Alo. “She loves the state. She loves every little thing about OU, and he or she simply needed to feed the OU fan base every little thing that she had. She left it. She left it on that discipline, and he or she left it within the historical past books ceaselessly.”