No. 2 Oklahoma overcomes early woes, downs No. 7 Tennessee on Ella Parker's walk-off homer in WCWS

New York Times

29-05-2025

Sooners ace Sam Landry had a feeling she couldn't quite put her finger on heading into No. 2 Oklahoma's first game against No. 7 Tennessee in the Women's College World Series.
'Something's gonna happen,' she remembered thinking.
But through most of the game, nothing did — for Oklahoma, at least. The Sooners were trailing 3-1 with two outs and runners on first and third in the bottom of the seventh staring down a Friday game in the loser's bracket. That was until sophomore Ella Parker hammered a walk-off home run, her second of the game, over Devon Park's center-field wall off Tennessee's star pitcher Karlyn Pickens.
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'(I) just understand to keep passing the bat,' Parker said postgame. 'I wasn't trying to make any moment too big.'
Oklahoma won 4-3, earning an off day before playing No. 6 Texas on Saturday. Tennessee faces No. 3 Florida on Friday night in an elimination game.
'That was a gut punch,' Tennessee coach Karen Weekly said.
'We play Florida tomorrow. One team's going home. It's going to come down to which team can flush today the quickest.'
ELLA PARKER WALKS IT OFF ‼️#WCWS x 🎥 ESPN / @OU_Softball pic.twitter.com/Z9RZ8t1bxI
— NCAA Softball (@NCAASoftball) May 29, 2025
The game felt like Tennessee's for the taking until the top of the seventh when Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso saw fans starting to leave the stadium and said she shared that with the team.
'People thought we were done,' she said. 'One thing, if you watched us through the season, we're never done.'
Momentum started tilting out of Tennessee's favor in later innings as Oklahoma ramped up its defense, and fully shifted when Oklahoma turned a clutch double play with bases loaded to maintain the 3-1 deficit heading into its final turn at-bat. It was the Sooners' third double play of the game, and set the stage for their comeback.
'We work on double plays all the time so they're fun to turn in the game,' Landry said. 'They're definitely a momentum changer.'
The Sooners gave up three runs throughout the first three innings but held the Volunteers scoreless after that.
'(The Sooners) love, love defense so much that my shoulder, knee everything is falling apart because we just have to hit them ground balls constantly,' Gasso said. 'They're all great hitters but if you ask them what they like better they'll say defense. They believe, and I believe, defense wins championships.'
third DP of the day 🔄
Three outs to work with.
📺ESPN pic.twitter.com/dp2oxYwz6n
— Oklahoma Softball (@OU_Softball) May 29, 2025
Tennessee's Pickens retired two of the first three batters of the seventh inning. All game long, Pickens — who threw the fastest softball pitch in NCAA history last week with a 79.4 mile-per-hour flamer against Nebraska — was easily throwing 75 mph fastballs and the Sooners struggled at the plate for most of the game.
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Gasso said to prepare for Pickens, the team set their pitching machines to nearly 80 mph in practice.
'You see the same thing out of Karlyn all seven innings. Karlyn is as steady as they come,' Weekly said. 'She's a warrior. Ninety nine times out of 100, she wins that game.'
On Pickens' second pitch to her fourth batter of the seventh, Oklahoma's Kasidi Pickering hit a single that pushed Ailana Agbayani to third base before Parker brought it home — literally.
Parker and Pickering lead the Sooners with a .418 and .409 batting average, respectively. They both rank second and third, respectively, on the team in RBIs.
Pickens struck out eight and allowed five hits on 129 pitches. Landry threw 139 pitches, tallied two strikeouts and allowed eight hits.
Oklahoma has yet to lose a game in this year's playoffs, escaping the regional round with three straight wins and then besting No. 15 Alabama in a straight set in the super regionals. Its pursuit of its fifth straight championship with its 14 newcomers now continues Saturday.
'Winning the first game sets you up. It's really, really important and I think this team doesn't even know that,' Gasso said.