She didn’t say the Sooners were this good.
OU opened the 2021 season on Thursday at the Miner Invitational with an historic 29-0 rout of host UTEP, then pummeled Abilene Christian 9-0 in their second game.
The Sooners bashed an NCAA record 13 home runs against UTEP, including three each from
Grace Lyons and freshman
Kinzie Hansen and
Jocelyn Alo, Jayda Coleman and Mackenzie Donihoo also homered as OU raced out to a 13-0 lead in the first inning.
Jennings finished with six RBIs, while Lyons and Mendes each drove in 5.
Gisele Juarez started and pitched three perfect innings with six strikeouts.
Oklahoma softball embarks on its quest for a fifth national championship this week.
The Sooners, ranked No. 4 in USA TODAY/NFCA and ESPN.com/USA Softball preseason polls to start the season, finally released their 2021 schedule on Tuesday.
OU will face 10 programs who made the 2019 NCAA tournament in 2021. Twenty-one contests will take place inside the friendly confines of Marita Hines Field in Norman.
The first battles of the 2021 season will take place on Feb. 11-12 in the Wildcat Invitational, which was originally scheduled to take place in Abilene, TX, but has been moved to El Paso, TX, due to the freezing temperatures sweeping the nation this week. OU will play the UTEP Miners and Abilene Christian University twice each over the course of the invitational, with the seasons’ first pitch coming on Thursday at 11 a.m. against the Miners.
OU Athletics
The headline isn’t that Oklahoma has been picked to win its ninth consecutive Big 12 Conference championship.
It’s that somebody else received votes in the preseason coaches poll enough to nearly topple the Sooners from the top spot.
Texas got three first-place votes and finished with 33 voting points, just one vote and one point behind OU (four first-place votes, 34 points).
The preseason poll was announced Thursday, and it’s the ninth year in a row and 12th time in the last 13 seasons that Oklahoma was picked to win the Big 12.
Oklahoma State finished third with 26 points, ahead of Baylor (21), Texas Tech (14), Iowa State (13) and Kansas (6).