Sooner women sweep double-header in Austin.Lauren hits one.

[Plainosooner]

They won game one 8-0, though it wasn't a run rule. They got their last two runs in T7. Parker threw the shutout.

Game two was more interesting. Texas got a solo homer in the first and led 1-0 into the fifth. Chamberlain tied it with the homer that tied the game. The Sooners added one more on a base loaded fielders choice by Paige Parker, batting as the DP. Then in the bottom half, she entered for starter Shelby Pendley with a runner on third and two outs. Parker got the final seven outs, five by strike outs.

Pendley homers with Chamberlain on in the first of game one. So she now has 80 in her career. Chamberlain is at 89, one short of the all time career record. If you want to watch game two, it will be on LHN at midnight tonight. It wasn't shown live because of the RRR baseball game which is now in extra innings tied at two in the 11th.

 

[Plainosooner]

Watching the top half of the first inning, I predict that Texas wins game three. The ump is giving the rise ball up out of the strike zone and Kelsey Stevens is pitching for OU and doesn't have one. She likes to keep in low in the zone and that is a ball in this game.

Texas' pitcher got five or six high pitches called strikes.

And Stevens has faced two batters with no pitches yet in the strike zone. Two walks, no outs. OU softball may have a problem. Last night, Pendley got hit by a pitch on her right hand on the bat. And she didn't pitch well afterward.

Stevens is leaving the game already and their attempt to give Parker some rest went for naught. I suspect she will have to pitch a complete game, no matter the result.

One good thing. She has a great rise ball.

 

[sybarite]

Well, they didn't score on Paige all weekend. We won 4-0 on three home runs by Shelby, Kady, and Kady. Kady hadn't looked good yesterday. Today, she hit two and almost a third. The home runs were really our only solid hits.

Pendley's injury wasn't serious. They had intended to pitch her for only four or five, but it went so well that she started the fifth. I think she was tiring, and Texas was getting on to her a bit. Paige was more insurance than a necessity at that point.

Kelsey will still get opportunities. The 37 game winner is hidden in there somewhere.

 

[Plainosooner]

Yeah, Patti took out her starter after two batters and eight straight balls. A very short leash. But a very necessary one. OU has very small margin for error. It is absolutely critical that they get a top eight seeding and because of the weakness of the conference, they can't lose more than maybe one game in the conference to get there. They could lose more and maybe get it. But the SEC is loaded with top twenty and top ten teams and they are building up a strength of schedule and a bunch of quality wins.

Kady Self was the difference in game three along with Parker. Self's solo homers accounted for the first and third of OU's runs and after Parker put out Stevens' fire in the first, she didn't give up much afterward. And she threw sixteen and two thirds innings without a run. But lets remember, that Texas just isn't very good this year.

They barely beat Dartmouth and Texas Southern. They lost to Georgia Southern and got run ruled by Lamar. All at home. They have other losses. So it's not like sweeping Texas would be anything special if they were wearing any other color of jersey besides burnt orange. They are athletic and play mostly pretty nice defense. But it's hard to figure out why those four schools might be considered their peers.

I've been wrong before, but I don't think Shelby is going to be a great pitcher against a top offense. And putting Parker out there against everybody in the post season is going to mean we better stay in every winners bracket.

There are some really nice positives about this team. Georgia Casey makes them a really solid defense. And the freshman at third base, Kelsey Arnold, is a defensive stud. There are six plus defensive players in the starting nine.

I don't think Parker will be an overall as good a player as Keilani Ricketts was. Six or seven MPH difference is a big deal. But right now, Parker is a better player and pitcher as a freshman than Ricketts was. There were several innings in the Texas series when she got the strike zone squeezed on her at important times. When that happened to Keilani early in her career, she lost her poise occasionally. Parker just kept on keepin' on and as you said, shut them down. She is improving as the season progresses.

Any team with this lineup, a quality defense and one quality college pitcher can be hard for anybody to beat. But it sure would be a better long term NC threat if there was another pitcher who was devoting her time just to that, that could be counted on.

 

[Soonersincefitty]

Well, FWIW we appreciate both Plaino and Sybarite keeping us commoners apprised of the ladies sports, especially softball.

A valuable resource here for sure.

 

[Autman]

Kelsey Steven struggles absolutely baffles me. It's like a golfer with the yips

 

[Plainosooner]

I know a guy in slow pitch softball of all places, that had that problem, and I think that's exactly what Kelsey is dealing with. I mean of her last 20 batters faced, she has thrown a couple dozen pitches that "slipped out of her hand." It happened two or three times in eight pitches today.

It like you get to the release point and suddenly there is a little quiver in the arm and total loss of control happens. Same thing happened to Steve Sax in the majors and he never recovered from it. It also happened to Chuck Knoblauch, also a second baseman.

When I was about 15 or maybe 16 I had it happen to me playing second. I was young and stupid and didn't have good practice habits. I was screwing around trying to throw a knuckle ball and warmed up with it in practice a lot. But it screwed with my muscle memory and I went through about a six or seven game stretch when I couldn't make a throw from the typical position at second base to first with any accuracy. It's not just a loss of confidence. I guess it's what you were calling the yips. I think that any arm task, that requires some touch, is subject to the problem. And nobody needs more touch on release than a softball pitcher. Once the problem starts, then the pressure of trying to get it right makes it worse.

Stevens' first two pitches were okay. But the second one was a really good pitch that was called a ball. Hard to know where it missed. It was at the knees in almost the middle of the plate. But I think the pressure then got to her. She's not been doing well. She didn't get a call she needed and I think it just went downhill quickly. She really didn't get close with another pitch.

When I solved my little problem, it was about getting back to being very fundamental in all throw deliveries. But it took almost a month to fix. And I lost a lot of playing time as a result. And rightly so. Routine grounders to second need to be outs. In my case, it didn't help that the coach was young and kind of a jerk and he did a lot of yelling.

Right now, I don't think we can count on Kelsey to get it back.

 

[sybarite]

I don't know how good Texas is. Texas isn't ranked. But, strangely, they swept Kansas in Lawrence a couple of weekends back, and Kansas is still #25 which seems to say something about the rankings. Texas is #20 in the NCAA rpi. Texas seems to lose to some less than stellar teams, but they also have wins over:
#19 Arizona State, winning 9-4 in Tempe
#12 Georgia, winning 5-0 in Cathedral City, CA
#9 UCLA, winning 5-3 in Cathedral City, CA
They did lose to #21 Missouri, 3-4 in Cathedral City, CA
and #2 Oregon, 9-0 in Tempe.
They swept Arkansas in Fayetteville, 3/14, 3/15, and 3/16, 8-7, 11-2, 8-5
Then, they swept #25 Kansas in Lawrence 6-0, 11-5, 7-5.

So, Texas may well be the second best team in the conference, depending on how good Baylor is. The rankings seem to be a bit off since they have six wins over top 25 teams, which a lot of top ten teams don't.

Stevens seems to be just fine when she is pitching in the bullpen. But, in eight pitches, one sailed over everyone's head, and three hit about four feet in front of the plate. She's thinking rather than functioning, and you can't think about your motion when you throw. The mechanics have to be repetitive. A hitter can't be thinking. A golfer can't be worried about the mechanics of his swing, or so I have been told. I don't golf. I don't know that she'll be back this summer. She might be a superstar next year. You never know.

We have one of the top two or three pitchers in Paige. She can carry the load as long as we don't end up in the loser's bracket. When you look at the scores of a lot of top teams, they have games in which they are being hit. 8-6 games are not unusual. Nobody is doing any better than Paige right now. Pendley may be able to give us five innings of adequate pitching if we are hitting.