WCWS 2019 – Three errors and Oklahoma was in the first game against UCLA

OKLAHOMA CITY – Before the first game of the Women's College World Series on Monday, the Oklahoma Sooners seemed invincible, at least on paper. They led the nation in the ERA team and match races and had made the least mistakes.

Hit, throw and defend. That's how they've won 41 consecutive games and spent more weeks in first place than any other US team.

But Monday night against UCLA, the only thing that looked like this unbeatable team was the uniforms. Everything else looked like someone else, especially the third consecutive runoff errors that triggered an offensive attack from UCLA and led to a Bruins 16-3 win.

The 13-point margin not only set the record for the most unbalanced result of the WCWS championship series, but was also the second-largest margin of victory for all World Series Women's College games.

"Give credit to UCLA," said Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso. "They cleaned our clock, there is no point on tiptoe, nothing in our game has worked tonight."

Just like that, a team that has lost five times throughout the season, an experienced squad for the championship in its third title in four years, must quickly recover from a terrible defeat or risk seeing the Bruins win their 12th title in Women's World Cup Tuesday.

Chances are against the Sooners. Since adopting the "best of three" format in 2005, the winner of the first game of the championship series has won the title in 11 of 14 years, including each of the last six.

Before the Sooners' batter match in the sixth inning, when the result was already decided, Gasso reunited his team to inculcate the message that the series was far from over.

"I told them: this game does not define our season," said Gasso. "This team is very resilient, it was probably the worst game we played all season on the biggest stage, but unfortunately it happened that way, but that does not define who we are." think you'll see a different team tomorrow. "

The team that the world of softball saw on Monday was different from any other Sooners team seen all season. In a match decided by 13 points, it is difficult to indicate a thing. But on Monday, an unusually disastrous third round was the catalyst for a final score that nobody expected. The score was 1-1 at the beginning of the inning, but after the collapse of the defense, UCLA had a 3-1 lead and did not return it.

"It is bad that three mistakes have occurred at the same time in a round," said Shay Knighten of Oklahoma. "But we will not be perfect all the time."

The first misunderstanding came with UCLA's Kinsley Washington late in the 0-2 countdown. She slapped a face in front of Giselle Juarez, a player from Oklahoma, in Grace Lyons' glove. The fast Washington was already safe when Lyons still fired the first goal, overtaking Knighten and sending Washington back to the second without any substitute.

On the next pitch, Kelli Godin, a freshman at UCLA, broke into the first goal line. Knighten picked up the ball and fired at Caleigh Clifton, covering himself first, but the shot was a contact on the base side. As Godin was about to come first, the ball ricocheted off Clifton's glove, allowing Washington to score and Godin to move into second place.

Three shots later, Bruins striker Bubba Nickles chained a left-footed single, which got stuck under the glove of Sooners' championship player Fale Aviu, allowing Godin to score. After a sacrificial offensive that put Nichols in third place, Juarez pulled Aaliyah Jordan and Rachel Garcia to end the inning. But the damage was done.

Knighten said after the match that she did not think there was a correlation between errors of three consecutive games. But Gasso was not so sure.

"We are in positions where we make mistakes and continue," said Gasso. "It was not typical of this team, did it bleed in the others, I do not know. [Clifton] do not drop a ball a second on a decay. She does not do that. Grace does not spill at first. There were things like: "Whoa, what's going on?" "

The Bruins have benefited. On a stage that looked like an Oklahoma home game with Norman just half an hour off the road, the Bruins silenced the hometown crowd by scoring points in the first, third, fourth and fifth inning, followed by six places in the sixth and third innings. one in seven places in the seventh to open the game.

The Sooners used four pitchers in the night, all of whom gave up at least three points. Broodmare Nicole Mendes was part of the thrower group. Prior to Monday, Oklahoma had, as a team, yielded three or more points in two of its last 25 games.

Before a game that was presented as a battle of yesteryear (UCLA) against new softball dynasties (Oklahoma), Oklahoma City's sports talk radio chat was the Sooners, an unstoppable version of Golden State softball Warriors. The only thing that could stop them, the argument had been advanced, it was themselves.

Admittedly, the Sooners were not themselves Monday. But that deserves the credit of the Bruins, who spent five weeks as the first team in the country this year, only two weeks behind the Sooners. The Bruins gave Oklahoma their two biggest losses, 23-4 in total.

From the beginning, it was clear that neither the starting pitcher, Juarez of Oklahoma nor Garcia of UCLA, had the same dominant characteristics posted a day earlier. Garcia played 179 shots in a 3-0 win over Washington 10, and Juarez conceded a point in eight innings against Alabama, then came back to throw 1 2/3 in the second game against Crimson Tide.

This made the hermetic defense behind the two throwers all the more important. Although the Bruins missed the ball 41 times this season, they did not make their first mistake Monday until the end of the sixth, when receiver Paige Halstead threw a pass behind the plate. The Sooners, meanwhile, made their fourth mistake of the night at the top of the seventh, when Brianna Tautalafua 's thrilling Lyons throw first knocked Knighten out of the bag. This error meant that 22% of the errors made by the Sooners during the 62-game season took place Monday against UCLA.

"I said [the team] do not read what people are going to say about us, said Gasso. Do not get caught up in all this.

Knighten added, "You just have to empty it, let it go, you can not go back and change it, the result is the result, we have to go back to what we are doing and go out with the same mindset, knowing that we we only have two games left, we're not safe anymore. "