Oklahoma Hammers Cal in NCAA Softball Tournament

Oklahoma, which has won the last four national championships, showed its power on Saturday afternoon by beating Cal 11-2 in a five-inning, run-rule victory in the NCAA Softball tournament Regional in Norman, Oklahoma.

Cal will play again Saturday evening against the winner of the Saturday afternoon game between Omaha and Boston University. The Golden Bears must win that game in the double-elimination format to avoid elimination and advance to Sunday’s regional championship round.

The winner of each of the 16 four-team regionals will advance to next weekend’s Super Regionals.

Even if Cal wins Saturday evening, it will be challenged to beat Oklahoma twice on Sunday to win the regional.

Oklahoma, the No. 2 overall seed in the 64-team event, improved to 47-7 and needed at-bats in just four innings to pile up enough runs to send Cal (36-20) into the loser’s bracket of the four-team regional.

Cal pitcher Annabel Teperson, who threw a complete-game shutout to beat Omaha 1-0 on Friday, lasted only 1 1/3 innings on Saturday, giving up five earned runs on three hits, three walks and one hit batter. She and reliever Anna Reimers combined to walk seven Oklahoma batters and hit three other Sooners with pitches to give Oklahoma advantages it didn’t need.

Cal ended up with as many hits as Oklahoma – seven apiece – but the free passes and timely hitting by the Sooners doomed the Bears.

A second-inning home run by Cal’s Kaylee Pond matched a first-inning homer Oklahoma’s Kasidi Pickering, tying the score 1-1 heading into the bottom of the second.

hat’s when Oklahoma took over, scoring four runs in the bottom of the second with help from the Bears’ pitchers, who issued two walks and hit two batters in the inning.

Two walks and a hit batter loaded the bases and led to three consecutive RBI singles by Oklahoma, the third of which came off Reimers. Reimers then hit the next batter to force in the fourth run of the inning to make it 5-1.

Cal missed opportunities to get back in the game in the third and fourth innings. Acacia Anders’ RBI single in the third inning made it 5-2, but when the Bears had the bases loaded with one out later in the inning, Alyssa Herrera grounded into a double play to end the threat.

Cal loaded the bases with two outs in the fourth, but Anders grounded out for the third out in that inning.

Oklahoma added six runs in the bottom of the fourth to make it 11-2, thanks to a pair of home runs. Gabbie Garcia hit a two-run homer to give the Sooners a 7-2 lead, and Pickering hit her second home run of the game, this one a grand slam, to give the Sooners a nine-run advantage.

When Cal was unable to score in the top of the fifth, Oklahoma was declared the winner because it led by eight runs or more after five innings.

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