All sticking around? Haven’t seen any smoke.

Oklahoma State softball braces for Arizona, a future Big 12 foe it can't take lightly​

Scott Wright
The Oklahoman

STILLWATER — Arizona is not a team you want to cross paths with in the college softball postseason.

But that’s the fate of fifth-seeded Oklahoma State, which will host the unseeded Wildcats in the best-of-three Stillwater Super Regional at Cowgirl Stadium, with the winner advancing to the Women’s College World Series.

The opening game of the series is set for 7 p.m. Friday, with the second game at 6 p.m. Saturday. If needed, the finale will be Sunday at a time to be determined.

Arizona has won 10 of its last 13 games and is coming off a 3-0 run through the Fayetteville Regional, which included an upset win over host Arkansas — the No. 12 seed in the NCAA Tournament field.


Arizona Head Coach Caitlin Lowe

Arizona remains one of the most prestigious programs in college softball, with eight national championships in 25 WCWS appearances. And though the Wildcats have not won it all since 2007, their name still carries significant weight in the sport.

While going on the road for regionals is a rare occurrence for the Wildcats, winning those regionals is not. Of Arizona’s 10 regionals played on the road, it has won eight of them.


In all, Arizona has 33 regional championships in 36 appearances and nine super-regional championships in 16 appearances since the best-of-three round was added in 2005.

Though this will be the first super regional matchup between OSU and Arizona, it’s their eighth postseason meeting, with the Wildcats owning a 4-3 record. But the Cowgirls won the last one, a 4-2 victory in the opening round of the 2022 WCWS.


Overall, Arizona has a 21-13 record against the Cowgirls, and 10 of those OSU wins came between 1979-93. Since then, OSU is 3-16 in the series.

Here are a few things to know about Arizona:

Get to know the Wildcats​

Record: 37-16-1 (13-11 Pac-12)

NCAA Tournament history: 187-67, 36th appearance

Leading hitter: There’s no obvious answer in the Wildcats’ potent lineup, but Dakota Kennedy is their most versatile hitter, posting a .404 batting average with 13 home runs and 34 RBIs. She leads the team with a .529 on-base percentage and has six stolen bases in eight attempts.

Leading pitcher: Aissa Silva and Miranda Stoddard have each pitched more than 125 innings, but Silva has the edge in numbers. She’s 22-5 with a 3.03 ERA and 109 strikeouts in 152 ⅔ innings.

OSU’s all-time record vs. Wildcats: 13-21

Last meeting: OSU won 4-2 in the opening round of the 2022 WCWS when Karli Petty hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the sixth inning. Kelly Maxwell allowed two runs on five hits with 14 strikeouts for the Cowgirls, who came one win away from the championship series that year.

Short hops: Pitching has been a staff effort this season, with Silva throwing the team’s only complete game. She’s thrown more than five innings just five times in her 47 appearances, though she went 10 ⅓ in a 14-inning win over Indiana. … The Wildcats have four hitters with at least 13 home runs and 34 RBIs. Allie Skaggs has a team-best 14 homers and Carlie Scupin has 58 RBIs. … Caitlin Lowe was a four-time All-American outfielder for the Wildcats from 2005-08, and won an Olympic silver medal as a player. Now in her third season as head coach, following in the footsteps of legendary Mike Candrea, Lowe has a record of 105-63-1, and is making her second super-regional appearance.

Keys to beating Arizona​

The Wildcats are an offense-first team, ranking 13th nationally in batting average (.331) and runs per game (6.31), but coming in 150th with a 3.70 team ERA.

Though they’ve won a few low-scoring games, the Wildcats have scored at least six runs in 29 of their 37 victories, with only three losses when they score at least six.

On the other side, they’re 4-9 when the opponent scores at least six runs.

Offensively, OSU is averaging 6.0 runs per game for the season and has scored at least six in 11 of its last 15 games. In that span, the Cowgirls are 13-2, allowing more than three runs just four times.


WCWS OSU vs Arizona 6/2/2022

Wildcats change with the calendar​

Arizona’s momentum this season seems to swing with the turn of the calendar.

The team opened the season with 16 wins in 17 games through February, the loss coming to the same Arkansas squad the Wildcats upset in running to the regional title over the weekend.

But March opened with a pair of losses to host Alabama at the Crimson Classic in Tuscaloosa, and that started a 6-10-1 month that included a 3-6 mark in Pac-12 play.


The Wildcats’ record swung back in a positive direction in April. Despite opening the month with a loss to Utah, Arizona went 11-6 for the month, including two wins over Oregon, a sweep of rival Arizona State and a win at then-No. 9 UCLA.

The mood of May will be heavily dictated by how this weekend goes. Arizona is 5-1 this month, going 1-1 in the Pac-12 Tournament with a loss to UCLA before the perfect run through the Fayetteville Regional. Overall, Arizona comes to Stillwater on a bit of a hot streak, having won 10 of its last 13 games.

A future conference rivalry​

Though the Wildcats and Cowgirls have played 34 times in their history, this will be Arizona’s first visit to Stillwater.

But it certainly won’t be the last.

Arizona officially joins the Big 12 in July, and instantly will become one of OSU’s top rivals for conference supremacy.



Arizona 2007 National Champions

In the final coaches’ rankings of the regular season, OSU (No. 5) and Arizona (No. 17) were the only teams from the future Big 12 ranked in the top 25. In the final RPI poll, OSU, Baylor and Arizona were the only such teams in the top 35.

Both because of its history and its current status, Arizona is clearly the biggest addition to the conference for softball, and the regular-season series with OSU will carry a lot of weight.

LMAO, Hilarious, when the policies you support hit your back yard how the attitude changes. You voted for it now wallow in the consequences.

State Election Board records show he registered to vote in the state on April 3, a day before filing to run for Oklahoma’s congressional seat. “We know he moved to Texas recently,” Cole said. “We found out obviously that he voted in Texas. Then all of a sudden, he registers in Oklahoma.” Bondar has never voted in any Oklahoma election, according to the agency.

With Green out for the year, that only leaves Vailahi and the two incoming freshmen RBs (Fields and the kid from the south). I'm assuming they'll try and get another portal RB. Thoughts?

https://dailycaller.com/2024/05/17/lincoln-riley-usc-compensation-college-football/

"Definitely a big difference from his $7.81 million to live in … *swallows* … Norman. "

Is it just me or do they seem to fade every second half?

More from the ToLeRaNt LeFt. My guess is whoever tweeted the dox still has their job with the City.

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/kans...rrison-butker-faith-based-commencement-speech

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Can we return to calling it genocide?

Immediate impact!

What I mean is Florida man doesn't need them.

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When China sent dozens of coast guard and maritime militia vessels to block a civilian protest flotilla from the Philippines, it wasn’t only a show of strength but also a demonstration of how difficult it would be for weaker navies to stand up to Beijing’s naval might. Two days later, the Philippines and Japan finalized their largest maritime security project till now.

Let’s try this again. Hopefully get these two in. Figure Garcia and Holiday on the bump, although wouldn’t be shocked to see Benge to keep SG regular. I’m sure the kids are frustrated / hard to warm up twice and not play. First game at 1:00. Think both are on ESPN Plus.

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I think the team that loses out most is Iowa. They were solidly #2, but after putting $31 million into their nuclear silo and no forecast in sight for the removal of the chihuahua twins, I don’t see a lot of upward mobility for them.
The winners would have to be wrestling as a whole. I think everyone likes parity, and an underdog story, and this provides a glimpse of both.
Penn state is both a winner and a loser in this. Cael would not agree but what made LA lakers so exciting was they had the Celtics. Cael is a cold blooded killer and there is no way he likes this. It creates cracks in his regime.

Oklahoma State softball ace Lexi Kilfoyl is 'story of the weekend' in NCAA regional sweep​

Scott Wright
The Oklahoman

STILLWATER — Lexi Kilfoyl’s opening weekend of the NCAA softball tournament can’t technically be described as perfect.

The Oklahoma State pitcher gave up some hits, and even a few runs in her three victories at the Stillwater Regional at Cowgirl Stadium.

But the hard-throwing right-hander was about as close to perfect as one could hope for, not just in the fifth-seeded Cowgirls’ 4-1 win over Michigan on Sunday, but all weekend as she powered the program to its fifth straight regional title.

In between a few soft singles allowed in the first inning and a harmless seventh-inning double, Kilfoyl retired 17 straight Wolverines (43-18).

That’s a day after she retired 19 straight Kentucky batters — likewise, sandwiched between some first- and seventh-inning hits — and two days after she retired all 15 she faced against Northern Colorado in the regional opener.

A vote for anyone other than Kilfoyl as regional MVP would be laughable.

“The story of the weekend is Lexi,” OSU coach Kenny Gajewski said. “Just the way she carried this team. She’s been waiting for this moment, whether she knows it or not.

“It’s really cool to see kids be able to answer and be so under control and so normal and so caring — caring about the program, her teammates, the Cowgirl way. It’s just really neat.”

The Cowgirls (47-10) advance to the Stillwater Super Regional, where they will play host to unseeded Arizona for a berth in the Women’s College World Series starting Friday night.

Here are three takeaways from OSU’s regional victory.

Why OSU went with Kilfoyl again​

It’s out of character for OSU coach Kenny Gajewski to lean so heavily on one pitcher, particularly in a year when the gap between his top two isn’t all that significant.

For reference, Kilfoyl pitched more innings in three games this weekend than Samantha Show did in the super regional at Florida State in 2019, when she was far-and-away the clear ace of that staff.

But the decision for Gajewski and first-year pitching coach Carrie Eberle became easy when Michigan defeated Kentucky in Saturday night’s elimination game.

“We hadn’t faced Michigan yet,” Gajewski said. “Since it was a new set of hitters, it made sense. When Carrie called me, that’s what she wanted, and there was no doubt.”


Kilfoyl allowed a run on five hits with eight strikeouts and no walks Sunday, bringing her weekend total to three runs (two earned) on 10 hits with 21 strikeouts and no walks. In fact, she hasn’t walked a batter in her last 25 innings, dating back to the Bedlam series on the final weekend of the regular season.

While she admitted to being tired after the game, and ready for the steak dinner her family was preparing for her, she knew she wanted the ball Sunday.

“Last night, Carrie and I had a talk about how I was feeling, and I was feeling pretty good,” Kilfoyl said. “I was really excited. Mentally, going into this weekend, I was ready to go at any moment.

“I was ready to go — just go win the game.”

Eight of the 10 hits Kilfoyl allowed this weekend came in the first inning of the last two games, but she has responded to both situations with dominance.


“It’s a mental, emotional test. That’s what the game does,” Gajewski said. “Whenever you think everything’s cruising along, you’ve got the best pitcher in the country over here, and you think you’re just gonna roll out there and go, the game tests you.

“We weathered the storm and it was cool to see.”

Key homers from Godwin, McDonald​

The look and the sound of the home runs hit by Lexi McDonald and Karli Godwin were not similar.

But the value of both was equally massive.

McDonald, a sophomore who settled in as the regular right fielder only a few weeks ago, hit a solo home run in the top of the second inning. The left-handed hitter reached out and hit a high fly ball to the opposite field, benefitting from the gusting wind blowing out to left at 20-plus mph.
“For an Oklahoma kid from Silo, this is just another step,” Gajewski said of McDonald. “This is just another step for her. She had to get over that hump, and she’s done that.”

Three innings later, Godwin’s two-run homer was a pure missile that never got more than 30 feet off the ground and cleared the left-center field fan deck with ease.

Though Godwin had a couple hits in the first two games of the regional, those around her could tell the freshman was pressing in her first postseason.

“(Jilyen Poullard) has been a big part of this weekend,” Godwin said. “Before I went on deck, she came up to me and was like, ‘Listen, we don’t need you to be a hero. We just need you to be Karli Godwin.’

“I think that took the pressure off my shoulders.”

Arizona up next​

When the NCAA bracket first was released, it looked like a Middle America showdown between programs from the Big 12 and Southeastern Conference was in the offing. Instead, it’ll be a future Big 12 rivalry.

OSU and 12th-seeded Arkansas were aligned for a super regional if both won. But that didn’t happen. With losses to Arizona and Villanova, the Razorbacks saw their season end Saturday.

Arizona advanced with an easy win over Villanova in Sunday’s regional final, so one of college softball’s most legendary programs will come to Stillwater next week.

The Wildcats’ seven WCWS titles are the second-most nationally behind UCLA, though they haven’t won one since 2007. They’re playing their final games as a member of the Pac-12 Conference, set to join the Big 12 in about six weeks.

The best-of-three series will begin at 7 p.m. CT Friday night (ESPNU) with Game 2 at 6 p.m. Saturday.

The dynasty that never was: 'They put us on the map;' the story of OSU's 1981 team​

• Daniel Allen, Staff Reporter, @danielallen1738

In this eight-part series, The O’Colly will revisit the 1981-87 Oklahoma State baseball teams, an era that is recognized as one of the most dominant stretches in college baseball history.

The Cowboys’ seven consecutive College World Series appearances mark the longest stretch in the sport’s history, but they never came away with a national championship.

Tom Holliday gripped his phone with a pressing opinion in mind.


As a phone call with Oklahoma State coach Gary Ward regarding the Cowboys’ 1981 lineup progressed, Holliday, OSU’s pitching coach, grew bullish as he read each name off the handwritten roster.

The returning production offensively and on the mound. The surplus of veteran experience. All of it provided Holliday with more assurance about the impending lineup.

Entering Year 4 of Ward’s tenure, both coaches knew the program needed a breakthrough.

The fan support around the program prior to Ward’s tenure had dwindled drastically during the latter years of Chet Bryan’s tenure. Nine consecutive seasons of regional-deprived teams put a damper on the program’s outlook. However, Ward and Holliday bolstered the fan investment, notably with a Big Eight Tournament championship in 1978 during the coaching tandem’s first season in Stillwater. Winning seasons in 1979 and 1980 – including a 43-10 campaign in ’80 – only enhanced that.

But OSU hadn’t appeared in the College World Series in 12 years. And in Holliday’s mind, the 1981 team was the one to make it happen.

“We’d pieced together a lineup of nine guys where, in all honesty, we felt like we were better than any team we played at every position,” Holliday said. “I mean, we were good. Really good.”

So, as the phone conversation between the two winded down, Holliday gave his two cents.

“I like this team this year,” Holliday told Ward. “I think this is the one.”

“You think so?” Ward questioned.

Absolutely,” he responded without hesitation.

First base slugger Jim Traber returned to OSU after a flashy freshman season in 1980. Mark Poole and Mickey Tettleton were set to man the catching position, with Poole being “the deep thinker” and “brains behind the plate that held a team together,” according to Holliday, while Tettleton was the “freak athlete” who could also slot in an outfield position.

The pitching rotation, however, was all the more enticing for Ward and Holliday. Two-way star Darren Dilks, a left-hander and pinch-hitter who had transferred to OSU in 1979 from Chaffey Junior College in Rancho Cucamonga, California, highlighted the core. No one, in the minds of the OSU coaching staff, was more paramount within the lineup than the elusive talent of Dilks.

“Dilks was the ultimate move-around kind of guy who could really play first base, could pitch, and could just excel anywhere you put him,” Ward said. “He was just a star. And we needed someone, like him, who could pick a team up and lead by example. And we got that in (Dilks).”

The latter two pitching slots were filled by junior college transfers throughout the season. Regardless of whom it was, the coaches were seldom scant in confidence. They’d witnessed the production in the fall. The spring was merely a time to display it in front of competition.

As for a coveted program breakthrough? Ward and Holliday had been building toward it the three prior years. And with a little less than one month ahead of Opening Weekend, in their minds, that breakthrough was imminent.

“We didn’t know when we were gonna get to Omaha, and we honestly felt like 1981 may have been a year late,” Holliday said. “But we knew it was coming.”

From 1981 on, Ward and Holliday had one commonality in mind: given OSU’s surplus of talent on its roster, the group would only improve from its 1980 form.

Often, a central figure within a roster is pinpointed midway through or in the latter stages of a season. OSU, however, was so experienced and “driven toward a national championship” that each prospect contributed in their own way.

“We intimidated everyone we played because it was kind of like our personality,” Holliday said. “We just expected to win. To win every game that we played in and beyond.”

The Cowboys opened their season with a 5-4 win over a ranked Arkansas squad in Fayetteville. Satisfying, but not good enough. Even amid an impressive season-opening win, Ward saw an excessive amount of necessary improvement within his team.

“Coach Ward, I remember he coached his tail off that year,” Traber said. “We beat (Arkansas) to start the year on the road, but we got an ass chewing afterward. We got an ass chewing after just about every game we played that first month; it felt like, even though we were winning so daggum much.”

Shortly after a 3-0 start came a series loss to Texas-Pan American – now known as Texas-Rio Grande Valley — on the road. Then a two-game split with Rice in a neutral-site series played at Pan American’s ballpark. It was, in retrospect, the lone adversity stretch OSU endured all regular season. And it couldn’t have come at a better time, in Holliday’s mind.

But with every “ass chewing” came improvement. And with each dose of improvement came immediate success.

OSU logged totals of nine runs or more 21 times over the season’s course. And as the offense gradually reached its peak form, the pitching staff complemented its success. Of course, highlighted by a multitude of pitching gems from Dilks.

After beginning the season at old University Park in Stillwater, OSU opened a new ballpark in Allie P. Reynolds Stadium on April 4 in a conference series against Missouri. OSU lost three of four, albeit to a talented Tiger team, but Holliday saw a silver lining in the moment.

“We needed that (new) ballpark, and it came at a great time for us,” he said. “You talk about fan investment; people started showing up to our games (which) made that better almost immediately.”

And attendance wasn’t the lone logistic that benefitted OSU from its new home confines.

“When we came in and got to Stillwater, OU was the talk of the town,” Holliday said. “They were really in control of everything, recruiting wise, rivalry wise, everything. They got all the prominent kids in our state. And (the stadium) kind of helped shift things our way.

“That and all the winning we did.”

The stark contrast in plusses from an out-of-shape, worn-down venue such as University Park to that of the new 3,821-seat Reynolds Stadium was immense. A fresh, polished home venue injected life into the fanbase. The OSU faithful poured in, and so did the recruits.

Holliday said OSU garnered pledges from as many as 10 prominent junior college recruits nationwide shortly after Reynolds Stadium’s opening.


Long before the era of the transfer portal and NIL, college baseball programs built themselves off of junior college transfers and high school prospects. Naturally, Holliday preferred experience. So, he often went the junior college route. Of course, that was while maintaining a feasible balance between attaining high school talent.

I coach at Union and I shouldn’t be this excited about Bixby wrestling hiring a new coach but I think it’s such a great thing for Oklahoma wrestling as a whole. With women’s wrestling continuing to grow having a presence like hers in the state should be a valuable piece.

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Good God we have some dumbshits on this planet. Or maybe her eyelashes were blocking her view?

May 13, 2024

America’s existential threat is the absence of consequences for Democrats​

By Lewis Dovland

America as we know it is facing its ultimate existential threat, all focused on whatever the left thinks it will take to ensure Donald Trump is not our next President.

Our dear, constitutional America has crossed the political Rubicon (perhaps the River Styx). In addition to foreign policy, border, and economic problems, it now faces a breakdown in our justice system. Those who use governmental powers to cheat or commit politically based crimes have no concerns about punishment. Heavily abetted by the Marxist progressives in control of our educational, media, and justice systems, nothing is out of bounds for them.

Because America’s left has removed religion from the public space and demonstrates immorality at every turn, we then must look at this issue differently because we now have citizens who have no compunction about lawlessness.

With leftists (progressive Marxists), who now include all Democrat politicians, no penalties for lawlessness apply, and that’s for two reasons. One, they have no shame. And two, even where a penalty could be applied, it won’t.

As James Comey explained in 2016, Hillary Clinton was fully caught having committed several serious violations of our secrecy acts. Ignoring a court order to preserve evidence (as well as statutory requirements for government records), she deleted 30,000 emails and smashed multiple cell phones, yet no one was prosecuted. So, lawlessness worked.

Harry Reid lied outright in 2012 on the Senate floor, claiming that Mitt Romney had not paid taxes for 10 years. Once the election ended and the truth came out, Reid was asked about it. His answer? “He didn’t win, did he?” Statements from a leading statesman possibly changed the outcome of an election, but there were no consequences.

The establishment’s burying Hunter’s laptop story until after the 2020 elections very likely changing the outcome of a very close race. None of the 51 ‘officials’ who signed an obviously false letter of denial will ever be prosecuted.

Very few miscreants have paid the price. I can only remember two offhand. In the Duke Lacrosse Case, Mike Nifong, the county prosecutor, figured he had the political-boosting case of his career because it had two major leftist touch points—rich white kids and a black female victim. Nifong was later disbarred, and Duke paid over $100 million to the students, along with an apology. But the young men were forever tainted.

Nick Sandmann, the Covington Catholic High student whom the media accused of racism for allegedly smirking at a Native American at the Lincoln Memorial, also received some measure of justice. That slander cost the media a lot, and Sandmann is wealthier for it. But his life has been affected, just as Kyle Rittenhouse’s life has forever been altered (nearly fatally) by a cabal of the media and the leftist judicial system in Kenosha.

Aside from one politician and a few media, these actors never pay a price for their actions. There is nothing to dissuade them in the future, and there is no penalty for mass fraud in the November elections. Democrats know: 1) they can cheat and manipulate with impunity because winning is the only thing; 2) if caught, their win still stands, just like a football score when the game is over; and 3) nothing will happen to them if caught.

Should a campaign-ending tragedy befall Donald Trump, while a scapegoat will certainly be caught and ‘Epsteined,’ there will be no repercussions for the plotters. And that would tragically warp America to an unrecoverable state.

Democrats don’t just hate Trump, they fear him. They understand that, once elected, the entire deep state, the corrupt structure that all Democrats and most D.C. Republicans support, will be cleaned out like the Augean stable. Therefore, they find acceptable any measures to avoid that outcome.

Should it happen, the voice of the American people will be muffled, and the left will win. We see this playing out in the Soviet-style kangaroo court trials Trump is now facing, with their blatant, egregious, and openly visible in-your-face,’ I dare you’ actions.

We are on very dangerous ground.

Or it makes me feel old, anyway

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Any links or list of the current players/commits?