Sooners Softball sweep FSU in close game 4-2! Earns Berth @ WCWS

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooners stayed the course on Friday and won a close, tight game against Florida State 4-2. The Sooners are now 54-6 on the season. Boomer Sooner!

he trio of Sooner pitchers, Kierson Deal, Karlie Keeney and Nicole May combined to limit the strong FSU lineup to 6 hits and 1 walk on the night. In a notable absence, OU did not pick up a strikeout against FSU. I have no idea when the last time that happened. Deal pitched 2.1 innings and gave up 3 hits and 1 walk. She did give up a solo HR to Beachum to open the 3rd, but when she was ahead in the count, she pitched well and had a 1, 2, 3 first inning. Keeney relieved Deal in the 3rd and retired the first two hitters she faced to end the inning. Keeney gave up 3 hits in her 2.2 inning as she gave up a solo HR to Harding and a double to Torres in the 5th. Nicole May entered in the bottom of the sixth to start the inning and was the best version of herself as she retired all six batters she faced. Keeney was awarded the Win and May earned a save in the game. The save was May's 6th save in her career and moved herself into a tie for 5th place all time as a Sooner with Paige Parker ('15-18) and Lana Moran ('97-00).

The pitchers benefited from some really nice defensive plays in the game by the Sooner fielders as FSU hit several balls very hard that the Sooner infielders handled and made strong throws to first base. The two best plays on the night were turned in by Jayda Coleman and Cydney Sanders. Sanders made a wonderful diving catch as she ran forward in foul territory and dove fully laid out to make a catch just above ground level of a sawed off little jammed popup in the 6th inning. But the best of the night, and maybe the year, was turned in by Jayda. On a deep fly ball to CF in the bottom of the 5th with the score 4-2 hit by Beachum, Jayda got back to the wall as the crowd anticipated what could happen, the stadium all stood up and watched Jayda jump high, start to fall back to earth and make the catch with arms stretched out and the ball above the top of the fence and settled back to the ground with bent knees. The crowd went absolutely berserk and the sound at Love's Field was the loudest that I have ever heard. I wanted the Sooners to take a time out. Just so we could continue to scream, yell applaud and show Ms. Coleman what she means to the Sooner fans. It was a moment. In her own right, May turned in two nice plays on ground balls hit back to her.

On offense, the Sooners put many runners on base, but the Florida State pitchers were resilient. The Sooners had 8 hits, and 7 walks and 1 HBP for 16 baserunners as they left 11 of them standing on base. But the Sooners scored 4 runs, which is two more than FSU scored. Key point here.

The Sooners got on the board first on a the 'infamous' double steal with runners on 1st and 3rd. Jennings was on third and Parker was on first. Parker played it like a veteran and she drew the throw to second and baited the FSU fielder to chase her back to first and when the throw went to 1B, she escaped long enough to allow Jennings to score on a perfectly timed run from 3B. We have seen it just like that so many times as a Sooner fans.

In the 5th inning, with Coleman on 3rd and Parker on 1st again, the FSU pitcher, Gooden threw a pitch that got by Edenfield, the FSU catcher with Coleman scoring from 3B as Parker moved to 2B to make the score 2-1. One out later, Kasidi Pickering got all of a Gooden pitch and hit a ball deep to LC for a 2-run HR to score Parker from 2B. That made the score 4-1. The HR was Pickering's 10th of the season and along with Parker gave the Sooners two freshman with double-digit HRs for the fist time since 2016 when Shay Knighten and Sydney Romero reached 13 and 10 HRs respectively. On the night Parker reached base four times, Pickering reached base twice. Coleman and Jennings also reached base twice on the night. Jennings was intentionally walked once.

The win advances the Sooners to their eighth straight WCWS dating back to 2016. The win was the Sooners 18th straight win in the playoffs which goes back to the 2022 loss to UCLA in the 3rd game of the WCWS. The Sooners rebounded with a 15-0 win over UCLA the following game and then defeated Texas 16-1 and 10-5 in the Finals.

In fact the Senior group of Sooners are 36-3 in the playoffs since the 2021 playoffs started. They were 11-2 in 2021, 10-1 in 2022 and 10-0 in 2023 and now 5-0 in 2024. That deserves a Boomer Sooner, maybe two!

The Sooners now get to rest and watch the Super Regionals play out over the next two days. The WCWS starts on Thursday, the 30th of May.

Rest well and get ready for the chance to do something never been done before, Sooners!

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the Sooners clinching win over Florida State last night.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/5/24 ... appearance

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

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