‘We All Love Her to Death’: Cowgirls Will See Familiar Face This Weekend in Kelly Maxwell

STILLWATER — Regardless of sport, there might not have been a transfer situation talked about more in the state of Oklahoma over the past year than Kelly Maxwell.

Maxwell was a two-time All-American for the Oklahoma State softball team before jumping the Bedlam border to play her final season at OU with the Sooners. The move brought a lot of talking points with it, but that had died down, for the most part, as time went on. Well, this weekend the Cowgirls will head to Norman for a big series against Maxwell and the Sooners.

“We all love her to death,” OSU pitcher Lexi Kilfoyl said Wednesday. “She’s an amazing person. I know a bunch of us are excited to see her.”

Maxwell has pitched a team-high 101 innings for the Sooners this season, where she has a 1.66 ERA and is 16-1. She’s always had a propensity for strikeouts, and that hasn’t stopped since switching from orange to crimson, as Maxwell has 107 this season. That mark ranks third in the Big 12 behind Baylor’s Aliyah Binford (123 strikeouts in 113 innings) and Kilfoyl (109 strikeouts in 132 1/3 innings).

Maxwell’s 16 wins ranks second in the conference behind Kilfoyl’s 19, and Maxwell’s one loss is the fewest in the league among players with at least 75 innings pitched.

There could be advantages for OSU in facing Maxwell in that it knows a lot about the lefty strikeout artist having had her on campus for five seasons. But eight Cowgirls have at least 75 at-bats this year. Of those eight, only half were with the Cowgirls last season with Maxwell. And all four of those who shared a team with Maxwell did so for only one year.

“I don’t have a ton of kids who have faced her a bunch,” OSU coach Kenny Gajewski said. “It’ll just be preparing, watching film, do that stuff that we normally do here and just go about it. She’s having a good year, so it’ll be a dogfight. It’ll be tough. We’re not gonna back down, I’ll tell you that. We’re gonna be ready and we’ll see where it falls.”

Claire Timm was teammates with Maxwell last season and has taken a big step forward in terms of on-field contributors as a sophomore this season. Timm is hitting .331 this season with 36 runs scored, 24 RBIs and seven home runs. She recorded only 29 at-bats as a freshman in 2023 but said there could be some benefit from working so closely to Maxwell last season.

“Yeah, just from a hitting standpoint, I guess [there is some benefit],” Timm said. “When she was here, we knew a lot of her tendencies. It’s going to be interesting to see if she has the same ones or what’s changed so that we can adjust to those but also go in having some information on her previously.”

Just how much Maxwell’s tendencies have changed or will change against the Cowgirls could be a question. Gajewski said they’ve just started getting into watching Maxwell from this season but that there ought to be some sort of familiarity with what she is trying to do.

“It’s hard to change your stripes this late,” Gajewski said. “I’m sure she’s got some new wrinkles that we’ll work through and watch and be prepared for. But for the most part, she’s still gonna rely on the same stuff, I would think.”