Texas Softball: Mike White discusses decision to pitch to Jocelyn Alo on first-inning home run

Oklahoma wasted no time getting on the board against Texas in Saturday’s Women’s College World Series matchup as Jocelyn Alo put one over the fence in the first inning. The question with a hitter of Alo’s caliber is whether to pitch to her — and Longhorns coach Mike White stood by the decision to do so.

Pitcher Hailey Dolcini missed on the pitch, which Alo sent out of the park to give the Sooners a 2-0 lead out of the gate. White said since it was early in the game, he saw no reason to pitch around Alo. After all, she was only the second hitter of the day, and Dolcini did pretty well against her the last time Texas and Oklahoma faced off.

“The last series, we had pretty good success against her,” White told ESPN’s Holly 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.”

The last time Oklahoma and Texas faced off, the Longhorns handed the Sooners their lone regular-season loss. In that matchup, Alo went 0-for-3 as Dolcini threw seven innings of two-hit ball. That wasn’t the case on Saturday as Alo went 2-for-3 against Dolcini before White made a pitching change in the fifth inning.

But White didn’t seem worried about Dolcini as Oklahoma started to get some opportunities during the game against Texas. He pointed to one part of her mindset that helps give him that confidence.

“Her refusal to give in,” White said. “She knows we’ve got her back and we’re going to try our best to come back on them. We’ve hit the ball pretty well so far and I expect us to make this a pretty good game the rest of the way.”