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WATCH: Oklahoma softball uses four-run inning to take control vs. Texas

ns_headshot_2024-clearby: Nick Schultz06/04/22NickSchultz_7

Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso called out her team for some missed opportunities in the third inning of the Sooners’ Women’s College World Series game vs. Texas on Saturday. She then called for a change — and it apparently worked.

Oklahoma scored four runs in the fifth inning to take a commanding 6-1 lead over the Longhorns in the WCWS. The exclamation point came from Tiare Jennings, who hit her second home run in as many games to cap off the rally.

Jayda Coleman and Jocelyn Alo also contributed to the effort with RBI singles, and Alo’s base hit knocked Texas starting pitcher Hailey Dolcini out of the game. Longhorns coach Mike White opted to bring in freshman hurler Sophia Simpson, who gave up the blast to Jennings.

Alo started the game off strong with a monster home run in the first inning to make it a 2-0 Oklahoma lead. But Texas answered back with a run in the first inning — just the third first-inning run the Sooners have given up all year. The score stayed 2-1 until the fifth inning when Oklahoma started to break things open.

Gasso spoke with ESPN’s Holly Rowe after the third inning and assessed Oklahoma’s inability to score runs. She pointed to Dolcini’s abilities in the circle and said a “change” was coming as the game went along. Clearly, it paid off.

“[Dolcini is] deceptive,” Gasso told Rowe. “She came in throwing a little bit harder now. She’s changing up speeds. So we’ve got to be more disciplined. We’re way early, we’ve got to sit late, we’ve got to work opposite field for our righties.

“It’s got to be better understanding of what she’s doing. We just wasted six opportunities and six straight outs. We’re better than that. So we’re going to step up and make a change.”

The biggest blast of the game was from Alo — the second batter Dolcini faced in the game. Texas coach Mike White stood by the decision to pitch to Alo, who hit a missed spot from Dolcini over the fence for her 30th home run of the year.

“The last series, we had pretty good success against her,” White told Rowe during an in-game interview. “It was early in the game and you don’t want them to get the big numbers on the board. Two, we can come back from. They start stringing stuff together. They have good hitters behind her. There’s a lot of stuff that goes into it. I feel confident in Hailey. We just made a mistake with the pitch.”