‘It’s Allowed Me to Learn’: Karli Godwin Opens Up about Navigating a Tricky Sophomore Season

STILLWATER — Two people shed a tear at Cowgirl softball’s media availability on Tuesday.

The first was Karli Godwin when talking about the ups and downs of a tricky sophomore season. The second was Kenny Gajewski when he heard how star pitcher Ruby Meylan had Godwin’s back.

After what OSU’s website labelled as “perhaps the greatest freshman season ever in the Gajewski era,” Godwin’s numbers are down a touch as a sophomore. She hit .340 last season with 15 home runs and 51 RBIs. That led her to be named to the All-Big 12 First Team and a freshman All-American. Heading into the postseason this year, she’s hitting .320 with five homers and 28 RBIs. Godwin ranks fourth in batting average among Cowgirls with at least 10 at-bats. She’s third on the team in RBIs, and her home runs rank fourth. Many would take those numbers and not look back, but Godwin has high expectations.

“It’s been rough, for sure,” Godwin said. “I’ve just been working through a lot of tough spots, and obviously I’m not happy with where I’ve been, but I think the last few weeks, I’ve really sat back and thought about things and reflected just on the year as a whole. And I don’t know, it’s just been really tough for me mentally and physically, and I think I kind of got away from being myself in all areas, even just showing up to the field and not even acting like myself in my swings, overthinking it. So I think it’s definitely been not what I hoped for, but I think this year has been great for me in other ways. I think it’s made me 10 times stronger as a person, and I’ve just learned so much from it. But just having the team and the coaches help me through it. They believed in me more than I even have in some moments.

“So, it’s been good, and like I said, it might seem like terrible on the outside, but I think it’s allowed me to learn and grow, not only in softball, but more importantly as a person. So, I’m just thankful for that, and the season, what we want is ahead of us, so just staying positive and knowing that I’m making progress to where I want to be coming out here soon.”

Meylan brought up the term “sophomore slump,” something she said she experienced last season at Washington. Meylan was an All-American as a freshman with the Huskies, finishing the year with an 18-7 record, a 2.14 ERA and 204 strikeouts to 52 walks. She had a 9-10 record and a 2.55 ERA as a sophomore with 139 strikeouts to 55 walks. Again, not bad numbers at all, but a dip from the year before. Without being asked a question about Godwin on Tuesday, Meylan showed support, saying Godwin’s numbers aren’t even bad.

“I sucked my sophomore year,” Meylan said. “I was awful. I mean, I wasn’t awful, but I felt awful. And I feel what she’s going through, and it’s something that a lot of people face. I mean, we’ve all heard the sophomore slump. It’s a legit thing. When you face a big amount of success that you’ve never had before at this level, you’re getting all the attention, you start to put this crazy amount of pressure on yourself, and people are also putting these expectations on you. Then it feels like the world’s crumbling on top of you. So, we’ve just got to remind ourselves and Karli and everybody in this program that it’s never as bad as you think it is, and she’s going to come out stronger because of this. …

“I feel like I’m watching Karli go through what I went through, and it sucks. It sucks so bad when you’re in it. But then I look back at my sophomore, and I’m like, I am so glad I went through all that hard stuff, not believing in myself, thinking that everyone hated me and didn’t see me as a competitor anymore, and then coming out on top of it and having this really cool junior year is super exciting. I have her back fully, and I just know she’s freaking awesome. And her numbers are not bad. Like, you look at them and you’re like, ‘Oh my god, Karli Godwin hasn’t hit 37 home runs.’ OK, like OK. It’s OK. We got her back. She’s good.”

Although Godwin might not be over the moon with her sophomore production to this point, the real softball is just getting started. Oklahoma State opens the Big 12 tournament against Arizona State at 11 a.m. Thursday. At 33-17, the Cowgirls still have an outside shot at hosting an NCAA Regional should they have a great weekend in Oklahoma City. Regardless of whether they host or not, the Cowgirls will still make the NCAA tournament field, and wherever they play in their Regional, it’ll be hard to call them anything but the favorite, considering they’ve made the past five Women’s College World Series.

“She’s told me, ‘I feel like I’ve let us down,'” Gajewski said. “And I’m like, ‘That’s nuts, man.’ This is so hard. And this is a game of averages. If you average her two years, it’s pretty dang good, right? I’ll probably call her tonight and check in on her because she’s somebody that cares about this place in a crazy way — sometimes probably too much. She needs to let that go when she gets in that box. She’s gotta worry about being Karli, not put our program on her back or expectations on her back.

“It excites me that she broke down in a weird way. I don’t know if that makes sense, but I like when kids, when you can kinda see the vulnerable side of them and they can start talking about that kind of stuff. I think what you have is you have a lot of kids that really care.”