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The Sooners and their fans can now exhale, but not without experiencing some serious hyperventilation.<\/p>\n
With two outs in the top of the seventh inning and teammates at first and second base, OU senior catcher Kinzie Hansen<\/a> went 0-2 against USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year finalist Valerie Cagle in what could have been the Sooners’ final swing.<\/p>\n All Cagle essentially had to do was keep the ball in the yard to seal the win. Hansen didn’t settle, though, and deposited Cagle’s third pitch into the left-field bleachers to force a 7-7 tie.<\/p>\n “She’s a great pitcher,” Hansen said of Cagle. “I’m not going to discredit her. She was throwing 71 (mph) and then she was coming at me with this offspeed thing. I took it for a strike when I was down 0-2. I feel like being a catcher sometimes gives you an advantage. As a caller, I’m thinking in my head that I’m going to get it again, I might as well.<\/p>\n “(OU third baseman) Alyssa Brito<\/a> was in my ear saying, “She must hit you three times.” Hansen said. “I knew I was going to get another one. The Sooners aren’t done until the last strike. We’re not done until the last out is made and it’s sealed. We were in the meeting saying it’s never over. No it’s done. That was really the approach that I had. I know that the younger Kinzie might have gone into it a little bit excited and she was just taking it all in and trying to finish the game. She was really just trying to keep her composure that this is the ‘last game, potentially, to Marita Hynes.<\/p>\n “I’ve never sprinted around the bases so fast in my life. Not even when I hit inside-the-parker against Washington. I think I ran faster today. I heard my teammates screaming just as I hit it , and I just wanted to get home. It felt like a pit. Everyone was pushing each other. My tongue was bleeding. I’m pretty sure I got punched in the face. It was chaotic. I knew at the time , this team. won’t be done in 2023 until we decide we’re done.”<\/p>\n When asked if the pitch got away from Cagle, Clemson coach John Rittman said, “I think she (Hansen) just made a good pitch. It’s just one of those where you hang your hat on “.<\/p>\n On the first pitch in the top of the ninth, OU’s second baseman Tiare Jennings<\/a> blasted a solo homer to center to set up the final margin. It was Jennings’ second home run of the game.<\/p>\n “We know this,” Gasso said, “we’re never out of a game. It doesn’t matter what. We could be down five, four, whatever. We’re not out. And we believe it. And we’ve done it in this stage with so much at stake. And the stakes are higher. Can we do this? I guess we can. They don’t doubt it.”<\/p>\n “Tiare came through really well to close the game for us,” Hansen said. “It’s never one person. (left fielder Kylie) Boone and everybody had to be on base for me. It could have easily been a different outcome. It’s not just about that swing. It’s about the other swings that they preceded me. Kudos to my other teammates who also did their jobs.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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