NORMAN — Patty Gasso had to be reminded that her team consists of eight true freshman during the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
After Oklahoma’s win over Boston University last Friday to open the weekend, she asked her team to raise their hands if they’d ever taken the field in a Regional.
“How many hands were there? Seven, maybe? Not a lot,” Gasso said on Friday. “You just assume, I think for myself, being here so long, I’m used to it. I think everyone feels that way.”
Onlookers the rest of the weekend would never have guessed how young the 2-seeded Sooners are.
They battered Cal on Saturday and Sunday to book their place opposite of Alabama in this weekend’s Super Regionals.
Freshman shortstop Gabbie Garcia rocketed a home run in each game against the Golden Bears, and she finished the weekend 3-for-7 with four RBIs.
Garcia leads the team with 18 homers, is tied with Kasidi Pickering for the team lead in RBIs (54), and she’s third on the team batting .355 this season, which even surprises Gasso.
“I think coming into the fall she was very nervous. She was trying really hard,” Gasso said on Wednesday. “It was a lot of — put some unnecessary expectations onto herself. And then she finally kind of let her feet melt into the ground a bit and just loosened up. I would never anticipate that she would have 18 home runs.
“… It’s shocking to me because when I was recruiting her… she liked to bunt a lot. So this is a wonderful surprise.”
Third baseman Nelly McEnroe-Marinas, a redshirt freshman, is fourth on the team with a .347 batting average, and she’s also added 15 doubles and 14 home runs.
Left-handed freshman Audrey Lowry has added some nice relief performances out of the bullpen, too, and freshman utility player Sydney Barker has come on strong in the postseason.
She earned a pair of starts in the SEC Tournament and made the most of them, hammering a pair of home runs in OU’s comeback victory over Arkansas.
Barker held onto her place in the lineup last weekend in all three games, and Gasso has been impressed with her continued growth throughout the season.
“She’s been really comfortable. At practice she’s swinging well,” Gasso said. “You can see her in the cages. She’s definitely maturing into a really good hitter and understands the strike zone. Doesn’t try to do too much.
“But she can take a swing and even mis-hit it, but hit it hard enough that it will land somewhere. There are times where she can hit it off the wall and hit it over the wall. So it’s really watching her production and feeling like she’s putting in maybe some extra work to get there and we’re seeing that.”
The abundance of youth in Oklahoma’s dugout has kept things light all season long, and the Sooners plan to continue to grow as they take on 15-seeded Alabama in this weekend’s pressure-filled Super Regionals matchup.
“We’re a young team and something that’s really stood out is how much we’ve grown since the beginning of the season,” outfielder Abby Dayton said on Wednesday. “This team doesn’t feel like we have freshmen and sophomore playing. It feels like it’s a veteran team.
“… I feel like I haven’t seen a team do that in a while, and so then you will see our younger athletes perform so well in these situations is so fun for me to see. That’s what I enjoy the most about the game.”
