Oklahoma softball coach Patty Gasso loves to teach through adversity.
The Sooners aren’t exactly struggling. But Gasso never misses an opportunity.
OU suffered its first loss of the season last Saturday at Missouri, and on Tuesday the Sooners had fallen — ever so slightly — in the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Top 25.
So Wednesday, Gasso’s No. 2-ranked squad came out and batted around in the first inning, then survived a rare slugfest on their way to a 19-16 victory over Wichita State at WSU’s Wilkins Stadium.
Wichita State hit five home runs off OU pitching, and the Sooners survived three errors by the defense.
“Just the perseverance through this game was important,” Gasso said in her postgame radio interview.
The Sooners scored a season-high in runs to improve to 30-1, while WSU fell to 16-16.
In this week’s NFCS poll, OU fell from No. 1 to No. 2, behind Texas, who got 16 first-place votes to OU’s 14. The Longhorns (31-2) are in front by the slimmest of margins, 757 poll points to OU’s 756. In last week’s poll, the Sooners received 23 first-place votes to UT’s eight.
Up next is this weekend’s series against No. 9 Tennessee at Love’s Field.
“The adjustments are going to have to be at another extreme this weekend,” Gasso said.
With the rest of the SEC schedule looming, Gasso has more important things to worry about than softball polls — things like pitching and defense. She was not happy about the Sooners’ performance in the circle on Wednesday night, and she blamed that on her team’s lack of proper focus on the Shockers.
“Bottom line, our pitching staff was not good enough at all tonight,” said Gasso, who has never lost a game to Wichita State (OU improved to 57-7 all-time against the Shockers.) “And, kind of discouraging. Because they’re better than that. But I also blame us (coaches) a little bit. To be honest, we’ve been really focusing on Tennessee.
“And I know what it’s like to play Wichita, especially here, and I wish I could go back and take that back, because it’s such a big weekend for us. It’s so important that we try to start getting a head start on it. And that’s what we get. We get a team that can kind of feel that and say, ‘Oh, they’re halfway in this game, (one) foot in, one foot out. Let’s go after them.’ And they did. So we’re lucky to walk away with the win.”
After the Sooners beat the Shockers 8-1 in Norman back on Feb. 23, OU’s latest midweek triumph looked like a laugher from that decisive first inning.
Instead, this one came with its own adversity.
Sooner pitchers gave up the most runs an OU team has allowed since losing 16-3 to UCLA in Game 1 of the WCWS Championship Series in 2019.
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