No. 5/6 OU Hosts North Texas Wednesday

No. 5/6 Oklahoma (35-6, 11-3) vs. North Texas (19-21-1, 9-8-1)
Date	Wednesday, April 18
Location	Norman, Okla. \| Marita Hynes Field
Tickets	OU Athletics Ticket Office
Radio	N/A
TV	Cox Channel 3/703 HD
Online	Live Stats
Game Info	Game Notes \| OU Twitter

NORMAN, Okla. --No. 5/6 Oklahoma (35-6, 11-3 in the Big 12) breaks from Big 12 action for a midweek game with North Texas (19-21-1, 9-8-1 in the Sun Belt) on Wednesday. The game is the first non-conference game in the last 14 for the Sooners who hold a 24-3 non-conference record this season. The two met earlier this season on Feb. 29 in Denton, Texas, as OU returned to Norman with a 4-1 win.

The Sooners enter the weekend with the nation's top pitching staff, sporting an ERA of 0.92, and the Big 12's second best hitting team with a cumulative batting average of .328. North Texas enters the match up with a cumulative batting average of .261 while its pitching staff holds an ERA of 3.28.

OU enters the series having won 11 of its last 13 games, all Big 12 games, including a capture of the Bedlam series with an 11-1 run-rule victory over Oklahoma State in five innings before winning two of three against Texas A&M. North Texas has split its last three games, all Sun Belt Games.

OU leads the Big 12 and is second nationally with 65 home runs and has six players with at least five home runs led by Big 12 leader Lauren Chamberlain with 19 home runs, just one shy of the OU single season record in the category. The freshman also leads the Big 12 in runs batted in (53), total bases (112) and slugging percentage (.903).

A top slugging team, Oklahoma leads the Big 12 with a slugging percentage of .564 while Chamberlain (.903), Keilani Ricketts (.790) and Jessica Shults (.762) hold the top three spots on the Big 12's individual slugging percentage list.

In the circle, the Sooners are led by the one-two punch of Michelle Gascoigne and Ricketts. The two rank second (0.91) and third (0.96), respectively, among Big 12 pitchers for ERA in all games while ranking first (0.89) and second (1.17), respectively, in conference only games. Ricketts ranks third nationally in hits allowed per seven innings (3.74), strikeouts (253) and third in ERA while ranking fourth in shutouts (10).

North Texas is led by Maddelyn Fraley with a batting average of .369, one of four Mean Green hitters over .300. Fraley (10) is one of four North Texas batters with at least six home runs as the team has 37 total. Ashley Kirk (7-9) and Brittany Simmons (9-9) lead North Texas in the circle with respective ERAs of 2.47 and 2.76.

THE SERIES
• Oklahoma has won all 22 games in the series with North Texas.
• The two teams have met in Norman 15 times with OU claiming all the games.

FUTURE SCHEDULE
• OU returns to Big 12 action this weekend as No. 9 Missouri comes to Norman for a three-game series beginning Friday at 7 p.m.

GET OUTTA OF HERE
The Big 12 leader in home runs with 65, the Sooners have hit multiple home runs on 18 occasions this season and at least three in nine different games.

Oklahoma is undefeated in its 18 games with multiple home runs and have hit 24 in its 14 Big 12 games. Six players have hit at least five home runs with freshman Lauren Chamberlain leading the way with a Big 12 leading 19.

The Oklahoma team single season record for home runs in a season is 85 set by the 2000 team while Lynette Velasquez (1999) and Lisa Carey are tied for the individual single season record with 20 home runs each.

THE SOONER STATE
Oklahoma is known as the Sooner State and with the March 28 win over Oklahoma State, the name applies in softball terms. In the 141st meeting between the two schools, the Sooners broke a series tie with a 4-0 win over the Cowgirls to earn a 71-70 edge in the series history that began on April 9, 1975, also a Sooner win.

The Sooners extended the series lead to 72-70 with an 11-1 run-rule victory over OSU on April 11 in Stillwater. OU has won 20 of the last 23 games in the Bedlam battle. The two teams return to action next Wednesday, April 25 in Norman.

SCORING IN BUNCHES
During the 17-game winning streak, the Oklahoma team got it done at the plate and in the circle. Nothing illustrates that more than the fact the Sooners outscored their opponents 124-11 during the streak.

Five of the last 20 games have been run-rule wins while OU has shutout six of the last 20 opponents with nine others scoring just one run each. In the last 20 games, OU has outscored its opponents 117-23.

The Sooners have only been held to one run or less on four occasions this season, all losses.

GASSO HITS 1,000 WINS
Oklahoma Head Coach Patty Gasso hit a major coaching milestone as she hit the 1,000-win mark as her No. 7 Sooners defeated Virginia, 9-1, at the Judi Garman Classic in Fullerton, Calif. Gasso now stands at 852-275-2 at Oklahoma and 1,012-336-3.

Counting just NCAA Division I wins, Gasso entered the 2012 season 29th all time and has already moved up a spot to 28th.

HITS PARADE
Oklahoma has registered at least seven hits in every game but seven this season and have hit double digits in the category on 10 different occasions including twice at the Judi Garman Classic with a season-high 19 hits against DePaul before collecting 18 against Virginia.

OU is 32-2 in the games it records at least seven hits with the only losses coming to Georgia when the Sooners out hit the Bulldogs, 7-4, but fell 3-2, and on April 6 when OU fell to Texas Tech, 5-4, despite collecting seven hits. Oklahoma is 3-4 in the seven games below seven hits.

Oklahoma has seven starters hitting at least .301 and eight players with at least 25 hits.

HOME SWEET HOME
With its sweep of Kansas and a win in the first game of the Texas Tech series, Oklahoma extended its home winning streak to 13 games dating back to its final home game of last season.

Oklahoma has had eight home winning streaks of least 10 games, all under Patty Gasso. The Sooners record for consecutive wins is 45 as the Sooners did not drop a home game for two years, winning every game from April 14, 2000 to April 14, 2002. The longest home winning streak in a single season was 20 set by the 2007 OU squad as part of a 25-game winning streak.

RICKETTS SETS CAREER STRIKEOUTS RECORD
Keilani Ricketts needed just one appearance in the 2012 to capture the Oklahoma career strikeouts record. The junior pitcher entered the season with 798 strikeouts in her first two seasons and Norman and struck out 16 in her season debut versus UNLV to surpass the previous record of 805 set by Jill Most from 1994-97. Ricketts ended the opening weekend at the Sportco Kick-Off Classic with 36 strikeouts and 834 on her career.

With 253 strikeouts on the season, Ricketts now has 1,049 career strikeouts and is fourth in Big 12 history in the category (page 6). The junior is 103 strikeouts from moving up to third on the Big 12 career list. Cat Osterman of Texas (2002-03, 2005-06) holds the Big 12 career record in the category with 2,265 career strikeouts.

PERFECTION
After racking up four one hitters this season, Keilani Ricketts was due for a one hitter. Against Kansas on March 30, she did that and then some with her first career perfect game in OU's 8-0 five-inning win.

Ricketts became eighth pitcher in Oklahoma history to accomplish the feat and joined classmate Michelle Gascoigne, who hit perfection last season against Appalachian State.

FIFTY FOUR STRAIGHT
When Kansas scored two runs on April 1, it marked the first time since OU's 4-2 win over Iowa on March 4 that Keilani Ricketts had given up a run, a streak that lasted 54 straight innings.

In her last 10 starts, Ricketts has allowed just 39 hits and has struck out 85 batters.

LAST TIME
Oklahoma and North Texas faced off earlier this year as OU took a 4-1 win over the Mean Green in Denton, Texas on March 29 (page 14 for full box score).

In that game, Oklahoma ace Keilani Ricketts was one out away from Oklahoma's 33rd no hitter in program history and the first in her career.

With the win, Oklahoma bounced back from its first two-game losing streak since last year's Women's College World Series and moved to 10-3 on the year while North Texas fell to 5-8. Oklahoma remained undefeated against the North Texas, improving its series lead to 22-0 including a 9-0 record in Denton.

RACKING UP THE Ks
Keilani Ricketts didn't stop racking up the Ks after reaching the OU career plateau. After striking out 14 Baylor batters on March 23, the junior now has 14 double-digit strikeout games on the season.

Ricketts has racked up 51 career games with at least 10 strikeouts and has eight games with at least 15 strikeouts including one game this season, 16 at UNLV, and the school record, 19 last season versus Iona.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

No. 5/6 OU Hosts North Texas Wednesday

Related News

Related Videos

Sponsors