Weekend Wrap: Oklahoma Searching to Get the Best From Ella Parker and the Offense
An important week lies ahead for Oklahoma.
The No. 2 Sooners dropped their first series of the year, losing Friday and Sunday to No. 9 Tennessee, to fall to 31-3 on the year and 9-3 in conference play.
The sky isn’t falling or anything dramatic in Norman, but OU coach Patty Gasso does want to see a different look from her team moving forward.
“I believe in this team. I really, really do,” Gasso said after the Sooners fell 5-3 on Sunday. “They do work and they want to be good. And what I see from that landscape is they want to be good so bad that they’re not.”
That improvement can come both in the circle and at the plate, but Gasso believes her team must find a way to relax to play their best softball.
In Need of a New Approach
Even in Oklahoma’s 4-1 victory on Saturday, Gasso wanted more from her offense.
“We’ve just got to fill up the lineup a little bit more,” Gasso said on Saturday. “Three of our nine had hits, we had a couple of walks along the way but we’ve just got to get a little bit more production in the lineup.”
For the weekend, Kasidi Pickering went 7-for-8 at the plate with two walks and three RBIs. Abigale Dayton went 4-for-9 in the leadoff spot with two walks and an RBI.
The rest of Oklahoma’s lineup combined to hit 6-for-58 while drawing seven walks.
“There are players that are walking out of the dugout and going into the bathroom to take a moment because they didn’t make a play that probably couldn’t have been made by anybody else, or they strike out with the runner in scoring position and they walk away,” Gasso said. “And they’re very, very hard on themselves because they want to be so good. So how do I as a coach and our coaching staff relax this team and get them to understand that they are good enough and they believe that everything is wrapped around them?”
Where it all starts is knowing exactly how each hitter is going to attack the at-bat before stepping up to the plate.
“I felt like we were kind of trying to make contact versus swinging like (Pickering) has been swinging and just really trying to square the ball up,” Gasso said. “And Pickering had a phenomenal weekend off of her and it’s a good example of tenacity and focus, but planning. And our team learned that we have to walk up with a plan to execute. And you can watch her plan because she almost says it out loud between pitches. And she’s very focused when she’s at the plate.”
Even the best-laid plan isn’t a guarantee of success against a pitcher as dynamic as Tennessee’s Karlyn Pickens.
“She just threw a 78 mile-per-hour pitch. If you saw the reaction, you have 0.31 seconds to react,” Pickering said on Sunday. “… She’s one of the best SEC pitchers. She’s earned that right, she’s good. Nobody else is doing what she’s doing.”
The week ahead — a midweek against UT Arlington, a Friday contest against St. Thomas and two games against UCF — will represent a chance for the Oklahoma offense to hit the mental reset button.
“There’s just a lot of unnecessary pressure that we’re putting (on) each player,” Gasso said, “Not all of them, but enough of them that are in the lineup that they need to just stop because it’s just not working.”
The Ella Parker Dilemma
Parker is one of the best hitters in the country. There’s not denying that.
But the OU slugger has struggled in SEC play. She’s 2-for-30 at the plate (.067) with a single and a homer run that was helped over the wall against Missouri by bouncing off the center fielder’s glove. Parker has also drawn 12 walks.
There’s a reason for Parker’s struggles — she’s not 100 percent.
“She has been a trooper,” Gasso said last Tuesday. “… If you just feel kind of that constant pain every time you take a step, it just doesn’t feel good. I talk to her every day about, what is it doing to you? She’s like, ‘I’m good, as long as I can put my turfs back on.’ There’s certain things that really help relieve the pain she’s feeling in her leg… But she’s gonna be there when we need her. I know that. I trust that.”
Tennessee’s pitching staff entered the weekend top in the country in team ERA, and the Volunteers got the best of Parker.
She went 0-for-8 with two walks across the three-game set.
Friday, Gasso was again adamant that she’s sticking with Parker.
“I will not take her out of this lineup because she is one of the best hitters I’ve ever seen,” Gasso said. “Maybe you’re not seeing it the way you want to see it or I’m not seeing it the way I want to see it right now, but it doesn’t change my belief in who she is and what she can do with one swing.
“… You have to give them a chance to figure out how to deal with some of the pain that is going on right now. I believe in her. I’m not going to make that change.”
But Gasso has made that change already this month — twice.
She gave Parker the night off ahead of the Missouri series, instead starting Tia Milloy as the designated player in OU’s 8-0 midweek win over East Texas A&M on March 19.
Parker didn’t start Oklahoma’s second game against Missouri, either, starting Cydney Sanders at designated player in the lineup. Parker was called upon to pinch hit for Sydney Barker in the third inning of that 3-1 loss. Parker went 0-3 with two strikeouts.
Gasso has guided the best hitters in program history through many dips, slumps and injuries. There’s no better coach to devise a plan to get Parker back firing on all cylinders, but the Sooners need their sophomore star back to her best for the back half of conference play.
Oklahoma will return to action at 6 p.m. on Tuesday in a road trip to take on UT Arlington.
