No. 1 Oklahoma softball came alive in the late innings to best No. 10 Florida State 6-2 and force a decisive Game 3 on Thursday.
No. 1 Oklahoma softball was back in a familiar situation at the Women’s College World Series on Wednesday night needing a win to keep their season alive when they faced No. 10 Florida State in Game 2 of the WCWS finals.
As she has done multiple times throughout play in Oklahoma City, head coach Patty Gasso turned to senior pitcher Giselle Juarez (22-1) to get the start in the circle and she was fantastic yet again after an early stumble tossing a complete game.
After the Sooners came up empty in the top of the first, the Seminoles would be the first team to strike on a two-run home run to left field off the bat of first baseman Elizabeth Mason. Florida State quickly held a 2-0 advantage and would take that into the third inning.
It was at that point that Oklahoma would get their first offense with third baseman Jana Johns crushing a ball way out to left field for a solo home run that sliced the deficit in half at 2-1.
That would remain the score all the way into the sixth inning when second baseman Tiare Jennings reached on error to open up the frame and bring up designated player Jocelyn Alo as the leading run at the plate. And then, well, she did what she does.
Alo blasted her 33rd home run of the season to push the Sooners to their first lead 3-2 in a truly legendary moment. The home run was also the 159th of the season for Oklahoma – an all-time record by homers from a team. It also brought them up to the 630 run mark as a team – which is also a new NCAA record.
Alo’s bomb seemingly took the lid off for Oklahoma’s offense, as they would go on to tack on two more runs in the frame on RBI hits from left fielder Mackenzie Donihoo and center fielder Jayda Coleman. Just like that, the Sooners led 5-2 late.
After Juarez pitched a clean bottom of the sixth, Oklahoma would add a little more insurance in the seventh on a sacrifice fly off the bat of right fielder Nicole Mendes that scored Alo. The Sooners took a 6-2 advantage into the final half inning.
From there, Juarez locked things down to give Oklahoma the victory and even up the series at 1-1 and force a winner-take-all game on Thursday afternoon. This was yet another fantastic display of resolve and refusal to go down by Gasso’s club.
The win moves the Sooners to 55-4 on the year and sets them just a single win away from their fifth national title in program history. This team remains incredibly resilient and truly never feels out of a game that they play. The offense was essentially non-existent until late in this one, but they were able to flip the switch late when they needed to do so. Not to mention Juarez, who was again tremendous.
Game 3 of the WCWS finals with everything on the line is set for Thursday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. CT in Oklahoma City.
