The No. 1 Oklahoma Sooners softball team continues their winning ways with a big win on Thursday over No. 19 Arizona at the Mary Nutter Classic. Not only did they shut the Wildcats out, Jessica Shults set a school career home run record.

Jessica Shults

It was due to Shults’ solo homer during the bottom of the 5th inning that boosted the Sooners from a 1-0 lead,  and gave them the momentum to take over by five runs.

Shults’ home run was her third of the season so far and 57th of her career. She set a Big 12 school record for career home runs, breaking a previous tie with Texas’ Megan Gibson and former Sooner Amber Flores.

Keilani Ricketts also helped push the Sooners by hitting a solo home run right after Shults. It was Ricketts’ third home run on the season as well. It was also the second time in 2013 that these two have hit back-to-back homers in a game.

Jessica Vest hit her first career homer with Shelby Pendley on first to make it 5-0; all in the 5th inning.

With the win, they improved to 12-0 on the season. The Sooners have a double header on Friday, facing UC Santa Barbara first then taking on Nebraska.

Talk about a year already flying by; the Oklahoma Sooners softball team, who just had their media day will open the season on February 8th…. which is next weekend!

The Sooners are looking to continue from their World Series run from 2012. They return 13 players, including stud pitcher, Keilani Ricketts.

Head coach Patti Gasso on getting ready for the 2013 season:

It’s very exciting because they’re hungry, and it was pretty easy to watch them go through the fall, although there was quite a bit of teaching because I have seven freshmen, all from Oklahoma. They’re trying to learn the system, so there was a lot of teaching going on, but my upperclassmen helped with that because they know freshmen are very important to the success of this program. But they’re hungry and they went after it hard this fall. We still feel like we have some things to take care of before we hit the road, but they are just very anxious about getting started again.

The Sooners will kick off the season at the Kajikawa Classic in Phoenix, Arizona. They take on Stanford, then Oregon State on Day 1. Day 2 consists of Oregon then New Mexico. The final day they will face Northwestern.

Sooner stud softball pitcher, Keilani Ricketts has been nominated for Sportswoman Of The Year by Women’s Sports Foundation at Cipriani Wall Street in New York.

Ricketts is being nominated from her outstanding performance from Sooner softball and Team USA.

From SoonerSports.com:

At the plate, she ended the season ranked ninth nationally with 53 walks and 10th with an on-base percentage of .553. She was also 19th with an .825 slugging percentage as she helped lead the Sooners to a second-place finish at the 2012 Women’s College World Series.

On the international level, the San Jose, Calif., native captured a gold medal at the 2011 Pan-American Games in Guadalajara with Team USA, recording a win in the championship game against Team Canada. As both a pitcher and hitter, Rickets helped Team USA to a first place finish this summer at the World Cup of Softball VII in Oklahoma City, after she allowed just one run in 9.2 innings pitched and struck out 10 batters.

The senior, left-handed pitcher also helped Team USA finish second in both the 2012 Canadian Open Fast Pitch International Tournament and 2012 ISF Women’s World Championship, where she was the team leader in pitching for games won (four) and strikeouts (25) over the course of the tournament.

Ricketts was the unanimous Big XII player of the year as well as the 2012 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year. She is up against athletes like  May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings. She is one of only two NCAA athletes nominated for the honor. The other is Maggie Steffens, a water polo player from Stanford.

The award will be given out Wednesday in New York City.

The Ametuer Softball Association chose the final members of the USA Women’s National Team and they went with an Oklahoma pitcher/catcher combo. Oklahoma catcher Jessica Shults was named to the team on Wednesday and will join Keilani Ricketts, who was selected in January.

Team USA will make several stops this Summer and will compete in six different events in the US and Canada. The will be featured at the Title IX 40th Anniversary Celebration against Canada on June 23 and then the  Canadian Open Fast Pitch International Championship in Surrey, B.C., Canada.

Lauren Chamberlin and  Destinee Martinez were both part of the selection camp to play on Team USA, but will be playing for the USA Elite team.

It’s unfortunate that the Summer Olympics dropped both softball and baseball from the sports played. With all of the talented softball players out there, it is no-doubt that Team USA would  have dominated. Take a look at the 2012 roster:

The team is being coached by USF head coach, Ken Ken Eriksen.

After an almost three hour rain delay, the Sooners and the Crimson Tide battled it out to crown a winner in the final game of the Womens College World Series Final. The Crimson Tide ended up being the new National Champions, winning 5-4.

The difference in the game was the Alabama pitcher, Jackie Traina. Traina threw a five-hitter. Though she did give up three home-runs, 2 of those belonging to Lauren Chamberlin.

Oklahoma did lead the game after the third, but four runs in for Alabama in the 4th was the game changer. Alabama became the first team from the SEC to win a softball title and ended the season with a 60-8 record.

Before the series with Alabama, Oklahoma had been on a 12 game winning streak. They closed out 2012 with a 54-10 record. Player of the year, Keilani Ricketts ended the world series with  64 strikeouts, the third most in WCWS history.

Keilani Ricketts of Oklahoma was named the 2012 Collegiate Softball Player of the year on Tuesday night. Ricketts is the first Sooner in history to take home the honor. Her sister was also a finalist for the award back in 2007.

Keilani Ricketts, 2012 POY Pic from SoonerSports.com

Release from SoonerSports.com:

The unanimous Big 12 Player of the Year, Ricketts was the only player among the three finalists to lead her team in both pitching and hitting. Ricketts currently ranks 11th in the country with an on-base percentage of .558 and 13th with an .841 slugging percentage. The Oklahoma junior is eighth nationally with 49 walks.

In the circle, she ranks third in the NCAA with an ERA of 0.99, third with 393 strikeouts and her 33 wins puts her fifth nationally. Ricketts is second in the nation in giving up just 3.71 hits per seven innings. The southpaw has recorded 1,191 career strikeouts, putting her third on the Big 12 career list.

The other two finalists for the 2012 award were Pac-12 Player of the Year Valerie Arioto (Pleasanton, Calif.) of California and Pac-12 First-Team honoree Katelyn Boyd (Phoenix, Ariz.) of Arizona State.

The Sooners begin their College World Series run on Thursday against South Florida in the opening game. South Florida comes into the game 50-12, while the Sooners are 50-8. The Sooners and the Bulls have met 5 times previously, with the Bulls holding the series, 3-2. The last time they met was in 2003, where the Sooners won both games.

You will be able to catch the Sooners and all of the Women’s College World Series action on ESPN2. The game is scheduled for a Noon first pitch at the ASA Hall of Fame Stadium.

Ricketts

Keilani Ricketts and the Sooners had a great day yesterday at the Sportco Kick-Off Classic in Las Vegas. The Sooners has Cal State Bakersfield up first and shut them out, 6-0. The No. 5 Sooners then took on UNLV, just to shut them out as well, 5-0.

Ricketts, the Sooner junior pitcher, had 16 strikeouts yesterday, now with 814 on her career. She only gave up 3 hits total yesterday.

Head coach Patty Gasso:

“Our pitching was outstanding. When our pitchers first came in, they were a little tight but they began to settle down. I thought our defense played well and that Jessica Shults was fantastic. This team has been waiting to play for so long I think they got here and got stuck a little and didn’t play up to the potential they are capable up. We want them to swing the bat where the whole ball park can feel it. They have to trust their swing and go with it.”

In the first game against Cal State Bakersfield, which is the second straight season the Sooners have opened against the Roadrunners, the Sooners jumped off to an early start. Pitcher Michelle Gascoigne only gave up on hit through the 5th and struck out eight batters, walking three. They dominated the entire game.

The second game against UNLV took a little longer to get on the board. The Sooners finally scored in the 5th and the bats woke up after that. The ended the game with a total of 9 hits and 1 error.

Oklahoma returns to the field Saturday for back-to-back games against Weber State and Kent State.