Confidence in Kasidi Pickering Remains High Through Struggles

For the first time in her career, Kasidi Pickering is in a slump.

The Sooners junior outfielder/designated player, who has been an integral part of the team since she arrived, was hitless in 11 at bats before breaking through with a double off the first-base bag in the third inning of Sunday’s win over Georgia.

In Thursday’s series opener at Texas A&M, which was suspended with the Sooners leading 5-3 in the bottom of the sixth, Pickering was 0 for 3. That contest is now scheduled to resume at 12:50 p.m. on Friday.

That Sunday game was the only game Pickering started in the series against the Bulldogs, and she didn’t appear in the final game of the series against Arkansas and the mid-week game against Arkansas-Pine Bluff a few days later.

Sooners coach Patty Gasso remains supremely confident in the Humble, Texas, product.

“I think so,” Gasso said this week when asked if Pickering was getting back to her odl self after the double Sunday. “It’s not easy to step away, then come back and everything magically appears. She’s been hitting extra, coming in, getting some swings in for sure.

“I’m very confident in her. You don’t forget in two days how to be an elite hitter and she is. It’s just getting her confidence back and getting her those opportunities.”

As important, Gasso is seeing the confidence come back inside of Pickering.

“It’s been a very short period of time. … She didn’t miss a lot,” Gasso said. “So it’s not like she’s coming back forgetting things, she’s just getting back in the groove so I feel very confident in that.”

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Giving standout players time off isn’t something that’s new to Gasso.

When Jocelyn Alo slumped as a sophomore, Gasso kept her home for a road series at Kansas to get right and Alo bounced back from that to help the Sooners make the Women’s College World Series championship series that season and ultimately came the sport’s all-time leading home run hitter.

“I care more about these young women as women than I do what they can give us on the field,” Gasso said. “I’ve dealt with this with Jayda Coleman, Jocy Alo, I’ve dealt with all of them, Keilani Ricketts, it’s been going on forever. It’s usually the elite players that are like, ‘What else can I do?’ So she’s going to be just fine and we are gonna be just fine.”

In her first at-bat Friday, Pickering jumped on the first pitch she saw from Texas A&M’s Sydney Lessentine with two on and two outs in the first inning.

Pickering gave it a ride, though it ultimately fell just short, caught at the warning track in center field.

She flied out to right in the third inning and then grounded into a fielder’s choice in the fifth.

Pickering’s numbers are still solid, hitting .387 going into the resumption of Friday’s suspended game.

But before this 3-for-27 slump, Pickering was hitting a blistering .452.

Her numbers are still in line with what she’s done in her career to this point.