Sooner Softball – Sooners 31 – OBU 0 - Oct 16

[OUBeliever56A]

Repost from OUBeliever's Oct 16 post from old board

In front of a reported sold-out crowd, the Sooners did not disappoint their fans with a 31-0 win over the Bison from OBU. As I took my seat, the OBU team was taking batting practice on the field. Some of the players connecting with the pitches well but I did not see one ball go over the fence for a HR. I thought if OBU can not generate the power to hit a HR, it may be a long night for them.

Pre-game warmup:
Infield – Same players there. 1B-3B = Snow, Elam, Nugent and Johns. SS-2B = Lyons and Jennings Both = Brito and T Coleman. Catching in at the bucket – Green
Outfield – Same players there. Alo, Boone, Donihoo, J Coleman, Coor,
In the bullpen – Hansen
Pitchers working on the side – McAdoo, May, Bahl and Guthrie
Injured players – Lilio (left knee) and Waitman (right shoulder/arm)

Starting lineup:
T.J. - 2B, Alo - DP, Hansen - C, J.C. - CF, Elam - 1B, Johns - 3B, Boone – RF, Donihoo – LF, Lyons – SS, Trautwein Flex P

(We may have to get up to speed on the ‘Flex’ rules for this season. There are a couple of good videos out there that explains things well. Just google ‘DP and Flex rules for softball’. During these fall ball games, the Sooners are using the ‘flex’ spot as an extra batting spot to get 10 hitters in the lineup. That is not a ‘true flex’ usage, but it is fall ball.)

Sooner Pitching in the game:
Hope Trautwein started and pitched well once again. For the second game in a row, the leadoff hitter got a hit. This hit was a solid hit up the middle to the right of 2B that Jennings did not get to. Trautwein followed that with 3 straight Ks. She also struck out the side in the 2nd. The first batter in the 3rd topped a little grounder to SS. Lyons charged the ball fielded it and with her very quick release easily threw out the runner. The words ‘Quick Release’ should show a picture of Lyons as a definition. Trautwein struck out the second hitter. The third hitter of the inning hit a looping liner to the right of Jennings at second base. I thought the ball was by T.J. but a late well-time leap allowed her to catch the ball backhanded across her body. Defense is a nice thing for a pitcher. Trautwein allowed 1 hit in her 3 innings with 7 Ks. I had a better seat to see the pitches last night. Trautwein throws two ‘rise balls’, I think. One is hard and just explodes up. The other is slower and has great spin. It is generally lower around the hands and inside. Hitters swing thru the pitch early.

Nicole May pitched the middle three innings. She opened with a K. She jammed the next hitter and got a popup in foul territory outside of first that Elam handled well. Another K ended the inning. In the fifth inning May struck out the side. Two Ks were on good drops down in the zone and the third was a well-placed pitch on the inside corner. In the sixth, May got her 5th K in a row to open the inning. OBU tried to bunt their way on base (finally) with the next batter and May very quickly fielded the ball and threw a nice side-arm toss to Elam for the out. The last out was a lazy fly to LF that Donihoo may have caught where she stood before the pitch. May allowed no hits with 6 Ks in her 3 innings. It must be tough to maintain focus and pitch 100% when you are leading 15-0 when you enter the game to pitch. May did a good job of focusing and pitching well. She was not perfect, but she was very good once again.

Jordan Bahl Pitched the last 3.1 innings. She is intense when she is on the mound, even when ahead by a score of 28-0. The shift was back against both left and right-handed batters. A left-handed slapper faced 3 outfielders instead of 2 but there were still 3 infielders on the 3B side of the field. It seems that the shifts cause a buzz in the crowd. Bahl makes most of the buzz for naught however as she is simply overpowering the hitters. She struck out 9 of the 10 hitters she faced as OBU needed to get one extra player an at bat in the last inning. The lone batter to not strikeout hit a ground ball to Snow at first base for an easy out. We know now that Bahl will not strike out every hitter she faces. (Not that she would do that anyway.) Bahl threw the ball ‘up in the zone’ a little last night. At times she just threw the ball across the plate with high velocity.

Pitching totals: 9.1 innings, 1 hit, 0 walks, 22 Ks. Things are going well in the circle for the Sooners.

The hitters and the offense:
I am still impressed with how fast this team is on the bases. When the ball is hit in the field of play it is like a relay race on the bases. Every player runs very well. Even Alo is a very good base runner even though I would not call her fast. Bahl was also fast on the bases last night. Speed is dangerous against a defense. The Sooners are dangerous on the bases.

The first pitcher, Ms. Younce, looked like a good pitcher for OBU. I think she will have some success this year for OBU, and she is the best pitcher that OU has faced this fall. But against this lineup she was good batting practice. There is no offense intended in that comment. She did a good job of challenging the hitters and continuing to pitch with effort to the Sooners. It is just that OBU is not a D1 school like OU. In the 2.1 innings that Younce pitched, the Sooners totaled 18 hits and scored 15 runs. OU hit 2 doubles and 6 HRs off her. (Alo 2 run HR, Jennings solo HR, Lyons 3 run HR, Hansen 2 run HR, Elam 2 run HR, Johns solo HR.)

The next pitcher for OBU, Ms. Eddings, was a pitcher that pitched inside with a ball moving towards RH batters. She was relentless in her plan. She kept the Sooners off stride as she pitched for the most part. She did walk 5 batters and hit 2 batters, but she did not get hit hard until a Johns grand slam HR in the 4th inning. After that the Sooners got on track and reached 28 total runs thru 6 innings.

The final OBU pitcher, Ms. Jones, had a little more speed but did not always throw strikes. She had a couple of strikeouts against the Sooners in her 2 innings. The Sooners found her pitches in the last inning as Lyons and Hansen hit big HRs in the inning for 3 runs.

The offense totaled 31 runs on a recorded 30 hits by the scorer. The hits included 6 doubles and 9 HRs. The box score recorded 6 SB with 1 CS.

Conclusions:
The two teams this week, NCTC and OBU, were not strong teams. The best thing out of the games for the Sooners is that no one was injured and that ‘most everyone’ got to play. The games do not indicate anything that we did not already know or suspect. The Sooners has the potential to have very good pitching and the Sooners should once again have a high-powered offense. I count 10 players that have hit HRs in the two games. I believe that every player that has batted (16 players) has recorded a clean hit during the first two games. I think every returning Sooner player has looked good at the plate. The new players have gotten their feet wet with Brito (xfer) looking the best among them on offense so far but that should be expected as she is a sophomore. The defense, when required to make a play, have made them all with ease. When the pitchers strike out 43 batters out of 55 hitters there are not many chances to play defense, but the fielders have stayed alert to make them. The depth of the team is also apparent.

We will see if the competition is better next week when the Sooners play Seminole State (JUCO) and West Texas A&M, but I doubt that either team will really compete. West Texas A&M looks to be the best team of the four team.

The weather looks to be beautiful for the next week or so. Enjoy the fall days and buy your tickets early as they are likely to sell out or may be close to doing so already.

Here is the box score from the game.

https://soonersports.com/documents/2021 ... f?id=12385

Boomer Sooner!

[OU_Tom]

Here are video highlights

https://soonersports.com/watch/?Archive ... pe=Archive