Oklahoma Opens SEC Tournament With Georgia Rematch

The next chapter of Oklahoma’s season begins on Thursday. 

The No. 1 Sooners successfully defended their SEC regular-season title, and the first taste of postseason play will come at the SEC Tournament in Lexington, Ky.

Oklahoma split the tournament title with Texas A&M last year after inclement weather scrapped the title game, so the Sooners’ quest for a first outright tournament title in their new league will start in a rematch against Georgia.

The Bulldogs are the 9-seed, and they took down LSU 7-3 on Wednesday to advance to meet OU. 

The Sooners swept Georgia at Love’s Field during Oklahoma’s senior weekend. 

OU took the opener 10-2 in six innings on April 24 before grinding out a 3-1 victory to take the series the next day. 

The Sooners closed the weekend with a 6-5 win on April 26. The Bulldogs jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in that contest before home runs from Ella Parker and Kai Minor put Oklahoma on top.

Georgia rallied to tie the game 5-5 in the fifth, but Gabbie Garcia’s solo shot in the sixth proved to be the difference in the regular season. 

Oklahoma got its first taste of postseason-style pressure in its Saturday doubleheader against Texas A&M. 

The Sooners needed to win both games to ensure there would be no split of the SEC regular-season crown. 

“I thought maybe this was going to feel like too much pressure,” OU coach Patty Gasso said on Tuesday. “They were nails. They handled it, wanted it. There were a lot of clutch performances throughout. I was really proud of that.”

Though Oklahoma’s current sophomore class got vital postseason experience a year ago, four of Gasso’s eight everyday starters in the field are underclassmen, so any tournament experience will help forge the grit required to chase a national title in June. 

“You have to be gamers. You have to find your way on base,” Gasso said. “You have to drive runners in, throw quality pitches. You have to play great defense.”

Senior pitcher Sydney Berzon, who played in the SEC Tournament the last three years with LSU, advised her teammates to keep things simple over the next month. 

“We're lucky because being in the SEC that kind of prepares us for the postseason,” she said. “So everyone on the team, no matter what age, has been able to see what that kind of play looks like so I think that we're pretty prepared for it. 

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“But for me, I think my biggest thing I like to tell them is just have fun. This part of the year starts to go by even quicker than the regular season so just have fun, enjoy the chaos and play.”

If the Sooners are able to take down Georgia (7 p.m., SEC Network), Oklahoma will advance to the semifinals for a rematch with either Texas or Ole Miss. 

“The tournament's kind of a dog-eat-dog world,” Berzon said. “You go out there and just throw everything you've got out on the table and it's super fun and I'm excited to see what we do this week.”