With a standing-room-only crowd and a national audience watching, the No. 9 Missouri Tigers played about four hours of scoreless softball Sunday before taking down No. 14 Oklahoma by a score of 1-0.
The 1,712 fans packed into University Field had to wonder if they were experiencing a case of déjà vu. Just a day after beating Oklahoma in nine innings, Missouri (35-5, 9-0) had to wait until the bottom of the 11th for the game to dramatically finish. Sophomore pitcher Chelsea Thomas said she never doubted the Tigers would pull through.
“That was just a grit-it-out type of day,” Thomas said. “They’re a great team, but we’re the better team. I believed that the whole way through. I kept saying ‘I’m here as long as you need me, let’s just get one run.’ These are the kinds of games that’ll get us through the postseason.”
After 10 and one-half innings without either team scoring a run, Missouri finally broke through in the bottom of the 11th. Senior Abby Vock singled and stole second base with one out, and sophomore Nicole Hudson drove her in with a single to centerfield for the walk-off hit.
“I guess it was just right timing,” Hudson said. “I just wanted to come through big for our team and come through big for Chelsea. I managed to find a hole and get the job done.”
Thomas, who had pitched all nine innings the day before, threw another complete game gem for her 20th win of the season. She went 11 innings, allowing six hits and striking out 17 batters for the second consecutive day. Thomas’ 20-inning, 34-strikeout weekend is something Missouri coach Ehren Earleywine said left him speechless.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Earleywine said. “Not only did she do it, but she did it against a team that has hit about 60 home runs, batting .310 as a team with a lot of lefties. That’s usually not the greatest matchup for a right-handed pitcher, and she just absolutely dominated.”
Missouri got 12 hits and loaded the bases a couple of times, but Oklahoma pitcher Keilani Ricketts was just as good at getting out of trouble as Thomas was. Ricketts struck out 13 Missouri hitters, a day after racking up 16 strikeouts. Although she eventually made the game-winning hit, Hudson said Ricketts was nearly unhittable.
“Ricketts had an unbelievable game,” Hudson said. “You have to give credit to her. We’re a great hitting team, and she shut us down. It was just a game of cat-and-mouse the entire time. I felt like everything I was looking for, she would throw the opposite.”
Both Ricketts and Thomas made good use of their off-speed pitches, mixing up pitch selections to keep the hitters off balance. Earleywine pointed to the effectiveness of both pitchers as the reason for the long game.
“We’d get geared up in a good hitting count and she’d throw one of those changeups and it just turns the whole day around,” Earleywine said. “I think right when hitters started to jump up and speed their bat up, the pitchers threw a changeup and then (as a batter) you’re upside down and don’t know what to do.”
Earleywine said after the game the sweep over Oklahoma shouldn’t go unnoticed, and Missouri proved something this weekend.
“I just think nationwide it sends a statement that our program is for real,” Earleywine said. “We’re not a flash in the pan, and we showed that for 22 innings we could play with one of the best teams in the country. We’re not a fluke. We’re not a pretender.”