Oklahoma Softball Sweeps Tech In Series

The Texas Tech softball team faced Oklahoma University in a three-game series that left the Lady Raiders with a record of 0-3 on the weekend.

The Lady Raiders now have an eight-game losing streak in Big 12 play.

Senior Adriana Perez said she thinks facing Oklahoma was a learning experience for her team.

Oklahoma’s Keilani Ricketts pitched for Team USA and played in the College World Series over the past few years. Head Coach Shanon Hayes said he thinks this had a mental effect to some of his younger players during the series.

“We grew the last two days; I’m very happy with that,” Hayes said. “We started having better at bats, and we started to improve, and that’s what you want to see a young team doing.”

Perez said she thinks getting a few solid hits off of Ricketts in their third game had a positive impact on her teammates.

“They started Keilani and I felt like we saw her better today,” Perez said. “We were on her and it was definitely encouraging. It’s a loss but I feel like we got something out of it.”

Hayes also said he thought the series was a good opportunity for his team to grow and improve.

“You want to go out there, and you want a good end result,” Hayes said. “We had some kids step up, we had some good at bats, and I thought our defense played well for the most part.”

Hayes said he plans to build on what his team learned over the weekend to prepare for their upcoming series against Iowa State.

“We’ve got Iowa State this coming week and they’re a good ball club, they’ve proven that,” Hayes said. “But they’re a ball club that we can go out and win the series against.”

Katibeth King came off of the bench and hit two homeruns in the third game of the series against Ricketts.

“Coach Hayes was just waiting for that opportunity, for the right moment, and obviously it turned out for the best,” King said. “I just went up there hoping to get a hit. I had nothing to lose, and I was just trying to have fun.”

King said coming off of the bench and batting against Ricketts was a lot of pressure for her.

“But like I said you don’t really have anything to lose out there,” she said. “You know if she strikes you out she’s the number one pitcher in the nation, so I just was trying to do my best.”

“I think that even though we didn’t win this series that we had a lot better of a series than we did against Kansas, and we’re growing as a team,” King said.  “I think the freshmen see that and are excited about it, excited to go into this next series at Iowa State.”

 

 

 

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