Softball Makes Good On "Triple Threat"

May 21, 2002

NORMAN, Okla. - With the intent at the beginning of the season to make it back to contend for a second national championship, the 13th-ranked Oklahoma softball team lived up to the challenge and advanced to the Women's College World Series for the third consecutive year after defeating No. 23 Texas A&M, 8-1, in the regional championship game on Sunday.

The Sooners (49-14), who will enter the national classic as a No. 5 seed, will face the fourth-seeded and fifth-ranked California Golden Bears (52-19) on Thursday at 12:30 p.m. at the A.S.A. Don E. Porter Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City. The game will be carried live on ESPN.

The WCWS kicks off on Thursday and lasts until the championship game on Monday. Other teams that qualified for the tournament are No. 1 UCLA, No. 2 Arizona, No. 4 Arizona State, No. 7 Nebraska, No. 11 Michigan and No. 21 Florida State. To order tickets for the event, contact the Oklahoma City All Sports Association at (405) 236-5000.

A Look Back At The Sooners' Run In The NCAA Region 5 Tournament
The Sooners improved their NCAA Regional winning streak to 12 straight games with a four-game regional sweep for the third consecutive year ... All three regional championships have come on the Sooners home field at the OU Softball Complex ... Senior pitcher Jennifer Stewart was named the regional's Most Outstanding Player following the conclusion of the tournament ... Senior leftfielder Christy Ring, freshman catcher Heather Scaglione, junior shortstop Kelli Braitsch and junior third baseman Leah Gulla all joined Stewart on the all-tournament team ... Ring led the tournament field with a .733 (11-for-15) average with five runs scored and one RBI ... Ring tied former Sooner Casey Dickson (1994-1997) for the all-time walks drawn record with her 118th career free pass in the first match up against the Aggies on Friday ... The Venice Beach, Calif., native also extended a season-best eight-game hitting streak throughout the tournament ... Ring tied a season high of three hits in a game four times last weekend ... Stewart ran her regional tournament winning streak to 10 games by picking up victories in all four contests ... Stewart only gave up two runs in 27 innings of work ... Her last loss in regional play came in 1999 when OU was eliminated with a 7-3 loss to Louisiana State in Baton Rouge, La. ... Stewart reached the 20-win plateau over the weekend for the fourth time in her career ... The OU pitching staff shutout their opponents for the first 15.1 innings ... The Sooner defense only committed one error in the regional ... The team has now committed only one error in the last 10 games and two in the last 15 ... Oklahoma rebounded during the season to win two of the last three contests against Texas with their win over the Longhorns on Saturday ... UT had won the first three games of the series this year before OU's recent success ... The Sooners handed Big 12 Pitcher and Freshman of the Year Cat Osterman her first loss in her last 16 appearances with the 4-1 win on Saturday ... The team also picked up their first win in five attempts against the freshman standout this season ... OU's eight hits off Osterman tied Missouri for the second most hits a team has gotten off her this year ... Oklahoma also snapped her streak of most innings without giving up an earned run at 74.2.

Sooner Successes
This appearance in the Women's College World Series caps a banner year for University of Oklahoma athletics. The Sooners fashioned an 11-2 record and a Cotton Bowl victory in football, sent both the men's and women's basketball teams to the Final Four, won the NCAA Men's Gymnastics Championship and finished third in the NCAA Wrestling Championship. The softball team is one of two OU teams competing for a national championship this weekend. The women's golf team is vying for its title at Auburn, Wash. Ten of Oklahoma's 20 sports held national rankings this year and OU set a collegiate record for most combined victories in football (11), men's basketball (31) and women's basketball (32) with 74.

Oklahoma vs. The Tournament Field

No. 1 Seed UCLA Bruins
The Bruins lead the all-time series with OU, 4-1 ... The Sooners lone victory was in the 2000 NCAA National Championship Game, 3-1 ... Jennifer Stewart (winning pitcher) and Lisa Carey (three-run home run) were the heroes in that game as Okahoma claimed its first-ever national title in softball ... UCLA's victories came in 1981 (3-2 and 11-0), 1990 (7-1) and 1994 (3-0).

No. 2 Seed Arizona Wildcats
The Wildcats lead all-time, 19-7, but the series has been upped a notched recently with the national rise of Oklahoma ... Arizona won this year's game, 1-0 in nine innings, on April 17 in Oklahoma City behind senior starting pitcher Jennie Finch ... The two teams have meet in the College World Series the previous two years ... Last season, the Wildcats stunned OU in the second round of the tournament, 5-4 in eight, after falling behind 4-0 ... Both teams had entered that game with 23-game winning streaks ... In 2000, the Sooners upended Arizona, 1-0, en route to the championship.

No. 3 Seed Arizona State Sun Devils
The two teams have not meet since March 3, 1989, won by Arizona State, 2-1 ... That game was played in Las Cruces, N.M., part of the Roadrunner Invitational ... Interestingly, the teams met every year from 1979 to 1989 (with exception of 1983 and 1986) ... ASU has the edge in the all-time series, 10-3.

No. 4 Seed California Golden Bears
Cal leads the series, 7-3, but Oklahoma won the last two including previous encounter, 2-1, in the first round of the 2000 Women's College World Series ... The Sooners scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh inning including Christy Ring's game-winning RBI single ... In 1998, Oklahoma won, 1-0, on a two hitter by Lana Moran at the NFCA Leadoff Classic in Columbus, Ga. ... The two teams also met in the AIAW College World Series in 1981 (the Golden Bears prevailed, 4-1).

No. 6 Seed Michigan Wolverines
Michigan leads the all-time series, 10-4 ... The Wolverines edged the Sooners, 1-0, earlier this season in the NFCA Leadoff Classic ... The two teams previously played in last year's Women's College World Series ... OU came out on top, 2-0, in the first round matchup ... OU's Jennifer Stewart fired a three-hit shutout to give the Sooners their 50th win of the season ... The Wolverines' Sarah Griffin pitched a perfect game in 1996 (6-0 over Okahoma).

No. 7 Seed Nebraska Cornhuskers
Long-standing rivals, the two teams did not meet this season due to weather ... The doubleheader originally scheduled was to be played on March 21 in Lincoln ... The previous meeting took place on May 11, 2001, in the Big 12 Tournament as Oklahoma routed the Huskers, 10-2 ... OU and Nebraska have never meet in the College World Series ... The Huskers lead by a slim margin, 31-27, all-time.

No. 8 Seed Florida State Seminoles
The series edge goes to Florida State, 4-3 ... Oklahoma and FSU squared off this season in the Kia Classic in Fullerton, Calif. ... The Seminoles won a pitchers' dual, 1-0, with Florida's State Leslie Malerich defeating OU's Kami Keiter ... In 1997, Florida State won in eight innings, 2-1, at the NFCA Leadoff Classic in Columbus, Ga. ... The two school have also met once in the playoffs ... In 1994, the Sooners defeated FSU, 3-1, in the NCAA Regional.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

Softball Makes Good On "Triple Threat"

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