Bedlam Softball: Sooners Sweep Cowgirls with 5-1 Sunday Win

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STILLWATER — For the second straight season, the Sooners have swept the Cowgirls in the teams’ regular season series.

Oklahoma State fell 5-1 to Oklahoma on Sunday to complete the Sooners’ sweep. The win pushes OU to 49-1 on the year, while the Cowgirls fall back to 41-13. OSU has lost 10 of 12 heading into the postseason.

“My old coach, Larry Cochell, always used to say you play 60% of the year like you should, you play 20% below that and 20% above,” OSU coach Kenny Gajewksi said. “I think we’ve played enough of the below for sure, and I don’t think we’ve hit the 20 above. So I think the best is still in front of this team.”

Senior shortstop Grace Lyons supplied the Sooners with three RBIs on Sunday. She opened the game’s scoring with a two-RBI double to right-center in the third. Her third RBI came in the sixth via a sacrifice fly in the sixth.

Oklahoma State’s only run of the day came in the bottom of the sixth when Micaela Wark doubled down the right-field line to score Chyenne Factor from first.

The Cowgirls made three beautiful defensive plays in the first three innings Sunday.

The first came when freshman left fielder Tallen Edwards made a sliding catch. Running to her right, Edwards had to get the glove across her body while sliding to make the play. The Sooners had a runner on, so had she misplayed, it could’ve resulted in a run.

As good as the defense was at times Sunday, the Cowgirls did commit a pair of errors which led to a pair of Sooner runs. The Cowgirls came into this series averaging 0.58 errors a game, but OU puts pressure on defenses. In the three games, OSU committed four errors, or 1.33 errors a game.

Lexi Kilfoyl started in the circle for OSU and pitched six innings where she allowed five runs (three earned) off seven hits while walking four and striking out five.

It’s easy to get caught up in the slide the Cowgirls have been on, but they played OU as tight as any Big 12 team. The series run differential of -11 was better than any other team played OU. And the six runs OSU scored in the series tie Texas for the most runs scored against OU in a series this season (Texas gave up 22 runs).

The big thing for the Cowgirls will be securing a Top 8 seed in the national tournament, which would allow the road to a fourth consecutive Women’s College World Series to run through Stillwater. OSU entered the weekend ranked fourth in RPI, and three close losses to the No. 1 team shouldn’t change that much.

“I don’t think these are gonna hurt us bad enough — you’re playing the No. 1,” Gajewski said. “But the RPI is hard to figure at times, so we’ll see. Obviously, they look at your last 10 — it’s not very good. But hopefully we’ve done enough throughout the whole year that we’ve got that. I don’t know.”

OSU finished Big 12 play 10-8, good for the No. 3 seed in the Big 12 Tournament. OSU will play sixth-seeded Kansas at 6 p.m. Thursday in Oklahoma City. OSU swept the Jayhawks this season, winning by a combined score of 19-6.

Kenny Gajewksi’s Postgame News Conference