Oklahoma softball smashes Cal, earns regional championship
Eventually, that game was going to come for Oklahoma softball. Dominant through the first two regional games and winning by a combined score of 22-0, and it sounds outlandish to say, but there’s always a chance for more.
The more showed up Sunday. The Sooners blitzed California with a six-run top of the first inning in a 16-3 (5 innings) dismantling of the Bears to claim the regional championship.
Oklahoma is now 54-1 overall and riding a 46-game winning streak. The Sooners return to Marita Hynes Field one more next weekend to take on No. 16 Clemson in the Super Regionals.
How do you know it’s over? One out in the first, OU’s next six batters.
Tiare Jennings home run. Haley Lee double. Alyssa Brito two-run home run. Kinzie Hansen single. Cydney Sanders two-run home run. Jocelyn Erickson home run. Six runs, six hits, four homers, time to get ready for the next stage.
“The team came in ready,” head coach Patty Gasso said. “We knew that this is a day that a lot of teams’ seasons end today, and we just decided it wouldn’t be ours today. So they came out and punched really quickly and just kind of kept it going throughout the entire game. All parts of the game were working well for us.”
Brito and Jennings never let up. Jennings hit 4-for-4 with four RBIs, three runs scored. She added another home run (14 this season) and a two-run double.
Brito drove in five runs, adding a three-run homer in OU’s seven-run top of the third inning to make the score 14-0.
“It felt like a party. Honestly, it was super fun,” Brito said. “And everyone had really great energy.”
That extends to the bench. OU had 19 hits from 12 different players. Seven players drove in runs and 10 players scored.
It’s a brutal starting lineup. But it goes beyond that.
“I can’t ask for anything more. We work hard every day,” Gasso said. “All of our hard work is paying off. Especially in postseason, you can see the training, what it does. The information they get and how they’re responding to it is at another level, a level that I think sometimes is different than a lot of programs.”
Oklahoma used Alex Storako (2.2 IP), Nicole May (1.1) and Kierston Deal closed the show for the second game in a row in the fifth inning in the circle. Storako is now 18-0 this season.
It is the 13th consecutive Super Regional appearance for the Sooners.
