Oklahoma City – The magic race of the Oklahoma championship is over. But just as the Texas Tech coach, Gerry Glasco predicted, the Sooners did not easily come out, until his final field.
In the seventh entry of the semifinal of the Women's World Series on the female on Monday night, the nine -hole batter of Oklahoma, Abigale Dayton, created a homer of two outputs and two out on the right field wall in the pitcher of the Texas Texas Technological Superstar Nijare Cany to tie the score.
But the Red Raiders (53-12) resisted the “magic sooner” in their first appearance on WCWS.
Mihyia Davis connected a single. Hailey Toney doubled. And Lauren Allred left the four times National Defender Champions with a RBI sacrifice fly, since Texas Tech advanced to the WCWS finals for a 3-2 score.
In the best championship series that will begin on Wednesday, Texas Tech will face Texas, which eliminated Tennessee the earlier Monday.
The Raiders or Longhorns have never won a national softball title. Texas, who reached the final for the third time in the last four years, lost to Oklahoma in 2022 and 2024.
“We didn't want it to be easy. It's Oklahoma. You knew it wasn't going to be easy,” Glasco said. “This was our opportunity forever: to leave a legacy in Texas Tech that will be remembered forever. Our team has done it. They have left a legacy.”
So have the Sooners, who will not play in the championship series for the first time since 2018.
Glasco compared Sooners coach Patty Gasso, with the legendary male basketball coach of UCLA, John Wooden, and compared Oklahoma's domain with that of the Bruins in his apogee in the sixties and seventies.
“Only a privilege for my children to play against a team that trained well, that talent and exactly what Oklahoma is,” Glasco said. “A great privilege of being in the field with them.”
Despite trusting 14 new players this season, the Sooners (52-9) returned to the WCWS as the favorite. In the first game, Oklahoma knocked down Tennessee in the three -year -old three -year -old home run.
The Sooners had a little magic to Canady, who had closed them during the first six tickets on Monday. The third homer of the year of Dayton left Oklahoma with an inevitable delivery once again.
But Canady said the Red Raiders had prospered with people who doubted them.
“They didn't think we would get to this point,” he said. “We had no pressure on us.”
After leaving Stanford the last low season, Canady signed a null agreement worth more than $ 1 million to go to Texas Tech.
Glasco told the reigning collegiate player of the US Softball Year.
Canady took Texas Tech to the final entrance, becoming the first player to launch each launch on the WCWS for a team to reach the championship series from Rachel García de UCLA in 2019, according to ESPN Research.
Glasco said that Canady's competitive advantage had been contagious for the rest of the Raiders Network. And when Canady needed her teammates more after delivering the tied home run, they delivered.
“We had just played for each other,” said Canady.
“Honestly, it was a very cinematographic way to leave. An excellent way to go out.”
First senior base of Oklahoma Cydney Sanders
The biggest victory of his career was still bittersweet for Glasco.
His network Raiders defeated Oklahoma Sam Landry launcher, who played for Glasco in Louisiana last season. Landry said he had the name of Glasco's late daughter, Geri Ann Glasco, who died in a car accident in 2019, written in his glove for the game.
Landry launched 122 launches and kept the Sooners at a surprising distance after giving two races in the second entrance. After the game, Glasco hugged Landry in the field, telling him he loved her.
“I would have preferred to have finished their career against anyone in addition to me, and I would prefer to have played someone who she to go to the championship,” Glasco said. “But we don't control that.”
Oklahoma players fought with tears while contemplating their first WCWS departure playing for the Sooners. In the costume after the game, Gasso told his players that it was time to start “a new legacy” in Oklahoma.
“I just shared with them how fun I had fun with them, training them, seeing them grow, see them be hungry, see them never give up,” Gasso said. “The last heroic entry and victories from the point of view have been something incredible.”
The first senior base of Oklahoma, Cydney Sanders, who checked twice on Sunday in the victory over Oregon, said that despite the fact that the race for the title is over, the Sooners at least fell swinging.
“Honestly, it was a very cinematographic way to leave,” he said. “An excellent way out.”
