OU vs. Texas Tech softball: Five takeaways from Sooners' win against Red Raiders

NORMAN — Less than two weeks ago, OU softball coach Patty Gasso wondered if teams would employ different pitching approaches against her team in an effort to try to figure out something that could throw a bit of a roadblock in front of the Sooners’ offensive juggernaut.

Texas Tech did just that Thursday in the season opener against top-ranked OU.

The Red Raiders used a different pitcher every inning, keeping OU’s hitters off balance and holding the Sooners to just three hits.

Still, OU came out on top, riding an excellent performance from Alex Storako to a 3-0 victory to open the three-game series at Marita Hynes Field.

“A lot of times if you have two of the three parts of the game working well you can win,” Gasso said.

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Gasso said there was a bright spot to Texas Tech’s approach.

“We’ve seen them all (Red Raiders’ pitchers), except one, so now we know,” Gasso said.

The series continues at 6 p.m. Friday.

“I’m looking forward to seeing how our team’s going to respond,” Gasso said.

The Sooners (34-1) scored all their runs on two of the hits, and all came with two outs.

Haley Lee hit a towering solo home run in the first inning, and then Alyssa Brito delivered a two-run double in the fourth to give the Sooners at least a little breathing room.

Here are four other takeaways from the win:

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Alex Storako keeps Red Raiders guessing

Michigan transfer Alex Storako was excellent in the circle, allowing only three hits herself, striking out four and walking one to improve to 12-0.

“I think command, ability to change speeds on ’em a bit,” Sooners coach Patty Gasso said of what stood out to her about Storako’s performance. “They take hacks. They’re very aggressive. Almost every one I’m writing, ‘first-pitch swing,’ ‘first-pitch swing,’ they just get up, they just rip it and they’re aiming for the fence.”

Storako lowered her ERA to 0.75 with the shutout, her fourth complete game of the season.

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Familiar faces

In the first inning, Haley Lee blasted Maddie Kuehl’s 3-1 offering over the bleachers beyond the left-field wall.

The towering blast put the Sooners in front early.

One of the architects of Lee’s swing was watching in the opposite dugout.

Texas Tech coach Craig Snider spent the last three seasons as the hitting coach at Texas A&M, where Lee starred before transferring to Norman in the offseason.

“He was a big impact for me when I was at A&M,” Lee said. “He was kind of my go-to person.”

After the home run, Snider told Lee he should’ve known what to expect.

“He kind of just gave me a grin and a laugh at it,” Lee said.

Lee isn’t the only one on the Sooners’ side familiar with Snider.

In 2006, Snider served as a graduate assistant on Patty Gasso’s staff at OU.

“I don’t see him very often. It’s not like we get on the phone or anything like that,” Gasso said before the series. “He was with me a long time ago and he’s been in really good programs and grew quite a bit at Florida State. He had some really outstanding season with Lonni (Alameda, an OU alum and the Seminoles’ head coach). He was ready to be a head coach and he’s showing it.”

Coming into the series, the Red Raiders had more home runs (64) than the Sooners (63). Only Virginia Tech had hit more.

OU has played six more games than Tech.

The Red Raiders had just 36 home runs all of last season.

“The style of swing induces that,” Gasso said. “I guess I’m not surprised. I would say their schedule isn’t as challenging as ours, so some of those numbers might be skewed a little but, but we’re still respecting everything that we’re seeing. Coach (Jennifer) Rocha has even talked about their swings looking much better.”

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Defense bounces back strong

Even with last week’s uncharacteristic five errors in a sweep of Texas, the Sooners still maintained a firm grasp on the national lead in fielding percentage.

OU bounced back with a mostly spectacular defensive effort against the Red Raiders in the series opener.

The biggest play came with one out in the top of the fifth, when right fielder Avery Hodge tracked the ball of Alanna Barraza’s bat deep in the right-center field gap, robbing Barraza of at least a double with a diving catch.

Hodge, a freshman who has been primarily used as a pinch-runner, had just four putouts and seven assists coming into the game.

“If we’re doing things right, you should see her about every game, coming in running, coming in late in the game to play defense as well,” Sooners coach Patty Gasso said of Hodge. “Put her out in right field and she’s a shortstop/middle infielder. But that’s why I keep recruiting shortstops. … I recruit a lot of shortstops, or middle infielders, because I know they can usually move well and they have good arms.

“We had right-field tryouts, we’re still having them at practice, and Avery Hodge is really stepping out and making big-time plays. She’s got good speed, she’s got a good arm as well. She’s really embraced it and understands that that’s a way she can get in the game.”

Shortstop Grace Lyons added another big one in the sixth, with a back-handed pickup of a hard Makinzy Herzog grounder, making the throw across to retire her after a leadoff double.

Later in the inning, first baseman Cydney Sanders lunged to take a hit away and preserve Alex Storako’s shutout.

Third baseman Alyssa Brito did commit her second error of the season in the second, but she immediately followed it by ranging back to snag a foul ball for the second out of the game.

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Sooners stand alone in NCAA

Coming into Thursday’s game, Clemson was the only other team in Division I with just one loss.

No one else had even as few as two, after Oklahoma State fell to Wichita State earlier in the week to hand the Cowgirls their third loss of the season.

But Clemson was swept by Florida State in a doubleheader Thursday, falling 7-0 and 4-1, to snap what was a program-record 23-game winning streak and leave the Sooners alone atop the college softball world.

With Thursday’s win, OU has won 26 consecutive games.

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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU vs Texas Tech softball: Alex Storako, Sooners shut out Red Raiders