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Oklahoma

Gabbie Garcia hits walk-off home run, Oklahoma makes SEC history with comeback vs. Arkansas

ns_headshot_2024-clearby: Nick Schultz05/09/25NickSchultz_7
Oklahoma SS Gabbie Garcia
© SARAH PHIPPS/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Trailing 6-1 in the third inning, Patty Gasso got her Oklahoma team together hoping to spark a historic comeback at the SEC softball tournament. The Sooners then proceeded to score seven unanswered runs – three of which came on a Gabbie Garcia walk-off.

As OU trailed 6-5, Garcia stepped to the plate with runners on second and third in the bottom of the seventh and sent the first pitch over the center field wall. That completed the largest comeback in SEC tournament history and sent the Sooners to their first-ever SEC championship with an 8-6 win over the Razorbacks.

Garcia’s three-run blast was the first home run with runners on base for Oklahoma. In fact, the Sooners set a new SEC record with six long balls on the day. The first five were solo shots, and Garcia’s three-run blast was the exclamation point.

Gasso huddled her team as the Arkansas bats broke out through the first three innings of Friday’s game. She made three pitching changes to that point as the Razorbacks got two RBI singles, a home run and scored on a wild pitch to jump out to the commanding 6-1 lead. Entering Friday, no team had ever come back from a five-run deficit in the SEC Tournament.

But Garcia said Gasso had a simple message. She encouraged the Sooners to stay the course and have confidence the bats would wake up. They then proceeded to score seven unanswered runs to complete the comeback.

“Just trusting each other and trusting what we’re capable of,” Garcia told ESPN2’s Holly Rowe. “You can come back from anything. I think it’s totally possible. Just keeping us sure that our bats [were] going to get us back into it.”

Sydney Barker hit Oklahoma’s first home run of the game in the second inning, and Ella Parker added one of her own in the third. Baker then hit her second in the fourth inning, and Isabela Emerling added another to cut the deficit to 6-4 at that point.

That score held until the sixth when Ailana Agbayani hit Oklahoma’s fifth solo home run of the day. After keeping Arkansas’ bats quiet once again in the top of the seventh, the Sooners created a threat in the bottom half to set up Gabbie Garcia’s walk-off.

Now, OU will get ready for its first-ever SEC tournament championship game. The Sooners will await the winner of Texas vs. Texas A&M, which followed the win over Arkansas.